For The Love of a Demon
by Evelyn JD
Summary: Tori loves mysteries and Jade West is the biggest mystery she has ever had the plasure to deal with. But when an even bigger mystery arises from the streak of brutal murders that can't possibly be done by a human, will her interest in the girl stay just as strong, or will the White Wolf Demon with green eyes take it away? Rated M for violence, language and possibly later chapters.
1. She Cares?

**Hey there! **

**Yes guys, I'm back with another completely Jori story! I promised I would post it, so here it is! Just let me tell you, it's nothing like my first one… okay, some things are the same, like the main cast in the story and the author, and the computer it's been written on, but other than that, it's completely different. I don't want to give it all away right from the start, so all I'm gonna say is that if you aren't into fantasy and slight sci-fi mixed together with drama, love, hatred and necessary bloodshed (there won't be much of the last one, I promise), you probably want to leave right away. For the rest of you, who either enjoy or don't mind these kind of things, feel free to continue reading, I will be very happy if you do. **

**I want to let you know from the start, guys, that I tend to do cliff-hangers in longer stories (such as this one). That means you should get ready for me ending a chapter whenever it feels right, even though for you, as readers, it might seem the worst place to end it. So, please, guys, bear with me, even though I will probably get on your nerves, and know that I'm not doing it on purpose! **

**An important thing that you should do is**_** to**__**let me know what you think**_** guys! Because without that, I don't know if I'm doing it right, if the story has a flow and if it's interesting for you. So, you can either leave a review (you don't even know how much those little things make my day better), or a PM, if you want to talk about the story or whatever from the weather to books, movies or whatever else. Don't worry, I don't bite, neither I use scissors like a certain someone we all know and love ;D**

**Now, I want to thank my awesome beta ****Azkadellio for reading this over and pointing out the mistakes I have made (I just have to let you all know guys that I'm f***ing proud of myself, because according to him, there weren't many mistakes, which is totally great, since I'm not a native English speaker). So, thank you! **

**Just to let you and everyone else know, the only thing I own about this story is the story-line and mistakes I did in it. Everything else, like the characters, places and all the other stuff belong to their rightful owners. I just borrowed a few little somethings and had my way with them because the characters are just so awesome (especially Jade. I love Jade. And Liz, too, but that's not important right now. I just wonder, what would she think if she read some of the stories about the caracters she played that are posted?).**

**So, put on your reading glasses because computer really does not help your eyes (first-hand experience), get a bag of popcorn or whatever you like to eat and a cup of coke or whatever thing you like to drink (unless it's beer, in that case, drink straight from the bottle or the can or a big glass), because the first chapter of my second Jori story starts right about now! **

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><p><strong>For The Love of a Demon<strong>

**Chapter 1: She cares?**

Living in the LA wasn't easy. Many of you might think it is, with the LA being a big city full of people and lights and everything, but it isn't (trust me, I know, I live there). People will get on your nerves after a while (every single one of them, I mean, I generally like people, I really do, but when they are all around and when they are bitches to one another and are able to stab each other in the back whenever it's convenient, it can really drive me up the wall), the lights and the cars won't let you sleep at night and the constant noise will make your head ache. Also, there aren't many places for a late-night's runs (which I liked very much to do) or to just hang out (when you don't want to go into some bar or a restaurant, which I really didn't felt like doing sometimes, I mean, yes, dates were fun there, but really, apart from Karaoke Dokie and Nozu, there wasn't any place to go!), that wouldn't be occupied by some guys that could easily drug, rape and/or kill you. You also need to always prove yourself to others, because there are so many people that could be possibly better if they had the chance to show off. Always tip-toeing around everyone with your eyes wide open to see the next betrayal or threat isn't as much fun as it sounds.

So, yes, the life in LA is difficult. It's especially difficult when you have a condition that's called 'High Energy Formation', or, shortly, the HEF, like I do. Never heard of it? Don't worry, I'll explain. When you have the HEF, your body basically produces more energy than it should. Well, 'produce' isn't actually the right word for it. Your body is able to convert the carbohydrates and fat in the food you receive into a somewhat special form of glucose, which contains more energy than normal glucose. That means that from the food that a normal person would get enough energy for, let's say three hours; I can get enough energy for about eight hours (if it were possible for me to hold it in, which is not). And that's very, very bad, because my body, thanks to the HEF, isn't able to convert the energy back to fat and store it away for later use, just like it isn't able to hold it in for a longer time. No, I have to burn the energy right away, or I will go mad with the hum in my body and the constant feeling that I have to move or I'll die. You know that feeling when you go out for a date with a person you really like and you can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad one? You remember how your belly feels in that situation? Well, that's how every one of my muscles feels when I have a lot of energy in my body. My skin tingles and I can't concentrate on one thing for a long time. And it gets worse. If I don't start moving or if I don't do something to get that energy out of my body, I start to ache all over; I get moody, very nervous and really jumpy. And the final stage is when I'm about to crawl out of my skin; I claw at the skin wherever on my body I can reach with my fingernails (I did it only twice, but it left very unpleasant marks all over me, so to say that I was happy that it had happened about five years ago and the scars are gone now is an understanding), I can't stand still and my bones ache, literary.

So yes, every day, I have to either go running or do some physical activity, or try and think very, very hard (which also burns the energy, but in a much slower rate and I'm usually not able to wait that long, since my condition is one of the worst known to the doctors (honestly, after my results came in and the doctor read them, I thought his eyes will pop out of their holes). I, personally, prefer thinking while running, though I can't do that much in school and also around the city. But solving problems is good, too, since there, you need to think very hard and do stuff (like pulling up a roof of an old cabriolet at a gas station while it's raining cats and dogs outside). That was one of the reason I really enjoyed helping everyone around (the other reasons being my caring, nice personality and my love for everything living, and, as some people would say, my naïve idea that there's something good in everyone, it just needs to get pulled out by force in some cases, for example, but let's not talk about that).

Now, that you have at least some idea of what of a freak of nature I am, I can get on with my story, I guess. First, let me introduce myself. Hi, I'm Victoria Vega, but everyone calls me Tori. Or 'Vega', but that goes for only one person (I'll tell you about her later). I attend Hollywood Arts, a high-school for talented (understand crazy and sometimes very creepy) people. According to a lot of my friends and teachers, I was talented too, so they had taken me in. Of course, there were a few who didn't agree with that (okay, there was only one person like that, really), but that didn't matter, seeing as it was my third year in the school and everything was going good. I got good grades (well, one of the bests, but I don't want to boast), teachers liked me because I was always trying my hardest, even at subjects that didn't really fit me (like creative writing, for example; yeah, I could act out anything there was written on the script, but when it came to writing them, I was completely whipped off) and I had a bunch of good friends (even though there always was my frienemy, that I really, really liked, you can call it a crush, and a big one, by now and you'll see why I have that feelings for her once you get to know her). I have a sister that can ditch me for whatever guy she will never get, but she just has to try. My Dad is a cop, and a pretty good one, actually, even though he is, well, he's my Dad. He is supposed to tell me not to come home late (even though I was eighteen already) and he's supposed to keep all the boys away, threatening them with his gun. But he doesn't. He's very friendly to whoever that comes into our house, he always makes some jokes and he always finds something nice about people (I've got the last one from him). And my mom works in an insurance industry and is a very kind person, though she is, just like my whole family, a little bit crazy, in her own way (but honestly, who isn't?). She's nice and everything, but she often tends to overdo little things and be completely cool about the big ones (like that one time, when Trina had a car accident and mom just shrugged at it).

Do you still remember my HEF condition? Well, I forgot to mention that it's some sort of a genetic disorder, which means you can gain it only by inheriting it. I've got it from my mom. She's got it from her dad, he from his dad, he from his mom, and so on. It's been in the family for a long time (according to my mom at least), but both my mom and my nona say that my condition is the worst. My personal guess is that it always gets worse with each passing, but I didn't know if it was true or not (if yes, I'm not going to have children, because their condition would be even worse and I don't want that). Or, maybe, my HEF is stronger because Trina doesn't have it (though I don't understand why she doesn't and that's probably the only thing I envy her – she doesn't have to watch for what she eats and she doesn't feel like there's electricity running through her skin every time she gets some energy in her body).

What else should I tell you before we start? Oh, yeah, I don't have my driver's license, yet. What can I say, the old lady just keeps popping out whenever she is least needed, where she is least expected. Oh, and I love to dance and to sing. I could dance for hours, not only thanks to the HEF. Just give me good enough music (Latin-American or Spanish rhythm would be very much appreciated, since I'm a Puerto Rican and I grew up hearing that, so I, naturally, can dance to that the best), and I'll dance. It's one of my simplest, yet most welcomed joys in the life.

Now, you probably know everything you need to know, so we can start with the story.

I was sitting at 'our table' at the Asphalt Café, at Hollywood Arts, with all of my friends. To my left sat André Harris, a really great guy (even though a very cheesy one). He was my best friend (and I was his not so secret 'secret crush', which really got on my nerves, though I never told him that) and I loved him dearly, but who wouldn't? He was sweet, nice to people, gentle, loving, caring, always helping and he could make great music. He could get carried away sometimes, but who couldn't really, and I couldn't find a flaw in him, apart from the fact that he was kind of a girls' boy. Every few weeks he had a new girl in his aim and he would do anything to get her (most of the time he did get them). He was an African-American (but hey, who minded?), with dreadlocks, dark-brown eyes, full lips and typical speech, but I loved even that about him. It made him who he was, so, as his best friend, I adored and admired every part of him.

Next to André sat Robbie Shapiro with Rex Powers the Puppet (never tell neither of them that Rex is a puppet, they are both very sensitive when it comes to that) on his knees. He was quite a nice guy, smart, shy, awkward at time, honest and loyal, though he really was naïve and manipulable (he had helped Trina with decorating an enormous Christmas tree once, just because she _might _hug him afterwards). He was sweet and gentle and loving, but he didn't have enough balls to finally ask a girl out (means a certain redhead that was sitting at our table, too) or to say what he really thought. He didn't want to be rude, didn't want to offend anyone. And that's why he had Rex. The puppet was some sort of a vent for Robbie to let his real thoughts be known, to flirt with girls and to be the naughty self he was hiding deep inside. In general, he was a good guy and a pretty good friend. He had pale skin (not too pale, though), dark-brown, curly hair, brown eyes and he had glasses.

Next to him was Beck Oliver. With his fluffy, chocolate hair, chocolate eyes, tanned skin and good looks, he was the pretty-boy of the school. Almost every girl wanted to date him (especially now, that he no longer had a girlfriend). He was cool, nice, caring, wise and pretty calm, though some situations could get him pretty riled up. He always seemed like this cool guy who couldn't get angry (when I first met him, I thought he was smoking weed or something). But he was always nice and charming and friendly, so it was difficult not to become friends with him.

To his left sat Cat Valentine, a redhead (yeah, the redhead that Robbie really needed to ask out, they have that spark in between them ever since I knew them) girl with beautiful, brown eyes, big, dreamy smile and very random thoughts. It didn't matter what we were discussing, it always seemed as if she was in a different universe in her mind and only sometimes got to Earth, just to make a random comment. She also had a weakness for everything that was sweet and she could get addicted to something very easily. She was almost always cheerful and bubbly, though she was pretty feisty (her favorite sentence was 'what's that supposed to mean?!' according to how many times she used it). But that also made her quite… weird (remember when I said that there were weird people in this school? Cat is one of them). Either way, she was nice and a good friend and though I sometimes wanted to take her to psychiatric sanatorium, I loved her for the fact that she was this bubble of pure cheerfulness and joy.

Closing up the circle was my very dark, grumpy, slightly morbid, sarcastic, sassy, bossy, but very smart, very beautiful and unbelievably sexy frienemy, Jade West. She had a specific style to everything she did, from the way she dressed to the way she spoke, to the way she acted, to the way she wrote, to the way she looked at the world and people in it. She was a person who enjoyed their privacy and the fact that they were hidden by the veil of secrecy, and that was what attracted me to her the most. I've always had a thing for mysteries and Jade West was the biggest mystery of Hollywood Arts (and to be honest, she was the biggest mystery I've ever met with, and even though we knew each other for three years and I was really good at solving mysteries, I couldn't solve her). She was a punk-rocker, that meant she often wore black sleeveless t-shirts, checked flannel shirts just thrown over her shoulders, black jeans or leggings, combat boots, leather bracelets and stuff like that. She also had a tattoo of a pentacle star on her right forearm (she had another one, but I didn't know where or how it looked like), and she had her left eyebrow and nose pierced. She could be nasty and very annoying, when she wanted to be, but she was also helpful, when she had a reason to be. And, she was beautiful and sexy as hell, not only because her choice of clothing (though that really did a lot to her). She had raven-black, wavy hair that reached under her shoulder-blades, with a few strands that changed color every few weeks, though now they were sky-blue (it looked really cool when they were venomously green or bloody red), which only high-lined the beautiful blue color of her eyes. I've seen many people with blue eyes, but none of them had eyes as beautiful as Jade. Blue eyes tend to be watery (at least the majority of blue eyes I've seen were like that), but hers weren't. They were deep and stern and cold and beautiful and thoughtful and caring, and gentle, and sexy, and wild and they were what showed her real feelings the most (though she was an excellent actress and she could hide the emotions away even in her eyes). She had high cheek-bones, face shaped like those statutes from antique Greece, full, lips usually covered by pink lip-gloss (but when she put a black outfit on and a bloody-red lipstick on her lips, it looked almost deadly sexy, and I mean that, when I had seen her like that, I had almost gotten a heart-attack from how sexy she had been) and smooth skin that was pale as the moonlight. Her figure was also worth thousands sins, with her full breasts (she had mentioned once they were D-cups, and if I say I hadn't dreamt of touching them for million times... damn it); waist and hips shaped perfectly as if they were done by Michelangelo himself; firm, oh-so-gorgeous looking ass and lithe legs so perfectly shaped and longer than the road from LA to Boston and back. She was perfection in every sense (and that's why I had trouble keeping my underwear dry whenever I was around her, or whenever I thought about her). She was the embodiment of pure sexual sensuality, a Succubus, if they existed, and she had me wrapped around her long, slender, soft finger that would feel so good touching me-...

Sorry, I'm rambling. Back to the story!

So, we were sitting at our table, talking about basically anything we could, like any teenagers in our situation would. Robbie was trying to get Cat to agree to go out on a date with him (again), and she was persistently refusing (again), though with that smile and dreamy look that almost made me think that she didn't even know what was going on. Back was turning around and looking at all the girls around him, as if trying to find himself a worthy partner, which earned him more dirty looks from his former girlfriend, Jade, than I ever seen her give someone. And André, being André, was talking about music.

"The deadline is this Friday and I have next to nothing! Nothing! I can't seem to concentrate on the music, on the lyrics, anything!" he almost whined. Jade shot him an angry look when she heard him, but then she returned to glaring at Beck. The poor chocolate-haired boy lowered his head in shame, muttering a soft 'sorry', to what the Rocker only snorted and turned her head to the side.

"That's not like you at all," I remarked, frowning at Beck's clear show of submissiveness to Jade, and at the fact that André had a problem with a song. "Maybe I could help you, somehow. We can always come up with good songs, can't we?"

"Yeah, sure," he smiled at me, nodding his head. "That could work. Tonight at seven at my place?"

Is it just me or does it seem awfully like an invitation to a date, again? Well, I obviously wasn't the only one who thought that, since I noticed Jade turn her head slightly towards us, watching both me and André with an attentive, serious expression on her face. And both Beck and Cat were looking between me, André and Jade, though I didn't have enough time to notice their expression since I was too busy being sad because I was just about to rain on André's parade (again).

"Err, sorry, André, I actually can't tonight. Well, I have something planned every night, to be honest," I said kind of awkwardly. I could feel Jade's eyes on me, burning a hole into my head. I felt warmth making its way down my back, as if a stream of pleasantly hot water was poured on me, just like every time when she looked at me. It made me shiver with slight delight.

"So you don't want to help me?" my best friend asked, kind of hurt.

"Of course I do! Look, we can meet tomorrow, after school to work on the song, okay?" I asked, smiling hopefully at him. "I really have something on my list for the evenings; I have had since I can remember!"

"Mind if I ask what exactly you're going to do? Because now it seems like you're just making it up as an excuse," he said in a tone full of hurt. It broke my heart to see and hear him like this. Hurting him was the last thing I wanted. But as I had noticed some time ago, he would always be near to me, nearer that a friend (even the best one) should be; he would always laugh at my jokes even when Jade would tell me they weren't funny at all (she does that a lot, but her eyes are always serious when she means it and I learned how to distinguish the serious stare from the teasing spark in her eyes); he would always try to drag me places and act as if we were on a date together; and I hated it. Because, André was my best friend. That was that, nothing less, nothing more. I didn't have _feelings_ for him. Yes, of course I loved him, but only as a friend.

"I'm going for a run," I said matter-of-factly, suddenly very interested in eating my salad. Everyone at the table gave me a weird look, as if they were all trying to ask me if I was being serious. My hand, that was leading the fork with a bit of the salad towards my lips, stopped halfway on its way as I looked at them with my mouth opened. "What?"

"You're going for a run," Beck stated, with his right eyebrow quirked upwards slightly, which gave his skeptical look almost suspicious undertone.

"Yes," I confirmed, nodding my head.

"In Los Angeles," Cat said in that dreamy voice that now sounded slightly mistrustful.

"Yes," I repeated.

"At seven in the evening," this time, it was Jade who spoke. Her look wasn't a skeptical or a mistrustful one. It was more of a look of a person, who is trying very hard to keep calm even though they want to burst out in rage. She had her arms crossed at her chest, the muscles of her face, neck and shoulders were tensed and her eyes were staring into mine, making me feel that warmth spreading through me like a warm liquid.

"Actually, it will be later, about eight thirty, but I didn't want to get to André's, because I would only be able to stay about an hour at his place and that would lead us nowhere with the song, because it can't be rushed and if there was a limited amount of time for us, it would be-…"

"Do you have a death wish, Vega?!" Jade growled out, her eyes suddenly adopting a darker, angry shade of blue. The muscles of her face bent slightly, into a mask of suppressed emotions, just for a split second, before she managed to get them under control and to make them create that cold, neutral expression she so often wore. I could feel my heart beat faster at her little outburst. Everybody knew Jade West was not only embodiment of beauty, sensuality and perfection, but also an entity of danger and mystery that could make the bravest man out there piss himself with fear. And I, even though I was very rarely afraid of her, now felt that freezing fear deep inside, as if she was to leap on me and tear me into pieces or something (though I have to admit, I really liked that 'leaping on top of me' part).

"Why would I?" I asked, confused, after I managed to get at least a bit of my courage back.

"This city is dangerous after it gets dark, more dangerous than you think. Many beings come out after the sunset and they might just set their eyes on you!" she growled in a low voice, leaning slightly closer to me with every word she said. I gulped with my eyes wide as I stared at her. I didn't know why, but I was afraid of her. Suddenly, she seemed like a very, very dangerous being that could kill me without a second thought. "Rapists, murderers, muggers, hell anyone can hurt you after the dark! Anything could happen! Try using your brain sometime, okay?!"

I frowned at that, the fear in me getting replaced by angry hotness of rage (I _really_ hated my hot blooded, Hispanic nature sometimes). "I have done it countless of times before and nothing has ever happened to me! My Dad is a cop; do you really think I don't know about what can happen? But nothing has ever happened and even if, I know how to defend myself, thank you very much!"

"Just keep thinking that, Vega," she growled out, her voice even deeper than before. It was raspy and dangerous and even though it was meant to strike me with fear, it only sent chills of arousal down my spine (I couldn't help but imagine how that voice would sound in the bedroom, with her on top of me, whispering naughty, naughty things into my ear as her fingers would be doing just as naughty things in between my legs). "You were lucky enough to not really meet any danger out there. But one day, that luck will run out and then, I will come to your funeral just to say to your corpse, or at least to what will be left of it, that I told you so."

After that, she leaned back, took her Guns'N'Roses bag (she had had that one ever since she tore the Gears of War one when she used it as a tool to hit the face of some guy that wouldn't leave me alone) and rushed away, leaving us all confused.

The first one to break the silence that followed was Beck. He looked at Cat and nodded his head, to which the redhead stood up and left in the same direction Jade had stomped out moments ago without as much as an explanation, then he looked me straight in the eyes and I felt a very uncomfortable shiver make its way down my spine.

"She's right, you know," he said quietly, not even pretending to hide the somewhat dark nature of his voice. "You shouldn't go for a run at night. You shouldn't go out at night, at all, especially somewhere where there are no people around. You might run out of your luck and something might happen."

I didn't know what to say to that. Suddenly, the threat he and Jade were talking about seemed more real than before. I didn't know what could happen or why would it, when nothing had ever happened so far, but after Jade had stormed out like that, the idea of going for my much needed run seemed dangerous and quite insane. But I would have to go, even though they didn't want me to. It was either going mad from the energy, or risking the possibility of getting hurt on my run. I liked the letter slightly more.

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><p><strong>Well, that's it for today! Hope you enjoyed it! The next chapter should be posted within two to four weeks; I'm not sure when I finish it! So, let me know what you think, because I'm very, very curious and really nervous. Should I continue? I know I didn't give you much to judge by, but tell me if you're interested in the story. <strong>

**Before you go all 'Jade is a Goth in the last three seasons' on me, note that I know that. I just thought it suited better into the story if I combined the way she looked in the first season with her black hair and her… err, bigger advantages (if you know what I mean) from the other seasons . **

**And one more thing, guys. The High Energy Formation condition is only a product of my imagination. It doesn't exist, as far as I know. I just wanted to tell you that. **

**So, until the next time (if you want a next time on this story, that is)! See you! **


	2. The Meeting

**Hey, guys! **

**I know I said two weeks, but I couldn't just leave you all with only that small prologue, could I? So, here's chapter two and it's the chapter where everything actually starts. There's an explanation as to why, as ****ScottyBgood**** remarked, Tori goes for a night runs and doesn't work out in the safety and comfort of her home. **

**As to the dangers that ****Lushcoltrane had asked about, you'll see in this chapter. **

**To a guest who didn't put in a nickname, so I can't address him properly: doing some chapters of Jade's point of view isn't a bad idea, but in this story, there is a certain importance to her secrecy and I think doing chapters from her point of view would take that secrecy away. Maybe, there will be one or two, later in the story, but I'm not promising anything. **

**So, thanks for the reviews, follows and favorites, I hope you all will like this chapter more than the first one, since there isn't really anything to like, apart from the show of concern from Jade's side. **

**And a big 'thank you' goes to my awesome beta, ****Azkadellio****,****who is, for some reason, still able to put up with me. I hope you won't ever get tired of me or my stories, because I would really miss you! **

**Now, go get something to eat, drink or whatever, because here goes the second chapter!**

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><p><strong>For The Love of a Demon<strong>

**Chapter 2: The Meeting**

I still couldn't get what happened at lunch out of my head. Not the fact that André asked me on a date (he does that a lot recently, which always makes me feel bad and really annoyed, because every time he does, I refuse, as politely as I can, but it's still a refusal), I got pretty much used to that. What I couldn't wrap my head around, though, was Jade's reaction when I told them that I'm going for a run this and every other evening. She had seemed furious, for some reason, and the fact that she had (in her own way) tried to convince me to stay at home because something might happen indicated that she was worried about me. Well, we've known each other for three years and even though our frienemy status, we always seemed to be there for each other when one of us needed it. It has always been there, the bond, that strange force pulling me towards her, making me want to be friends (and something more, later on) with her. I had been worried about her, many, many times (and I don't mean her mental health, though that had, too, occurred once or twice), but I've never seen her worry about me. She hated me, right?

Well, it seemed she didn't. According to her little outburst, it seemed she cared a lot, and if she actually did, that would be good for me, for more reasons than one. First one: everyone was afraid of Jade, which meant that if she cared, I had a full immunity when it came to bullying and bad handling, not only at Hollywood Arts (really, do you know how many people would bully Robbie and Cat if they weren't under her protection? I had been left with my mouth hanging open when Robbie had told me about that). Second: if I had earned her friendship, I could bet my head on having a life-long, trustworthy, caring and honest friend. According to what Cat had told me in between the random rambles about her probably crazy brother, she and Jade had known each other from diapers and Jade hadn't once betrayed her. She was, actually, caring for Cat in her own way, making the dreamy girl see the world as it was and preparing her for it as well as making sure nobody makes fun of her (which was very, very nice, especially from Jade). And the third reason: I was getting under her skin. If she admitted we were friends (which she had done a few times in the past, but had denied the next opportunity she had gotten), I had a pretty good reason to celebrate, because that meant there was a chance for me to have her in the way I had wanted her for about a year.

Which lead me to the part I hated the most – planning. Because, to get a girl like Jade, you needed a bulletproof, fireproof, waterproof and especially 'Jade's-smartass-comments-and-sarcastic-remarks-proof' plan. She wouldn't hesitate to not only shot me down, but also make fun of me if I just went to her and said 'hey, Jade, I know we've been frienemies for three years, but I kinda fell in love with you and I was wondering if you would go on a date with me, so, this Friday, at seven at Nozu?'. So, when it came to asking Jade on a first date, the right forward approach wouldn't be the best. But, what would? What was I supposed to do to get into her head (and into her pants or skirt or whatever she would decide to wear that day, but that would only be a welcomed bonus)? What would make Jade call me hers and give me the right to call her mine?

"Hey, sista, sista, what you thinking of?"

My head jerked to my left, where, sat in the driver's seat of the car, was my big sister, Catharina 'Trina' Vega. Even though we didn't want to admit it to anyone, not even to ourselves (I mean, it's Trina! She's crazy, self-obsessed, completely talentless, and hopeless when it comes to love-life!), we did have some things in common. We both had brown, slightly wavy hair (mine were longer and darker), tanned skin and brown eyes (though mine were deeper and darker shade of brown than hers). We both had quite a good figure, with (small but still, though hers were bigger) curves at all the right places and we were both fit. But, there were a few things my body had that hers didn't (and I'm not talking about breasts, since she had always beaten me when it came to cup-size), and for me, the most important one of them were my cheekbones. Everybody loved them (even I did, I admit) and they found my cheeks incredibly cute (a welcomed bonus, though it could get me in trouble sometimes, when some relentless guy liked them way too much).

"Just… stuff," I muttered, taking my pear-phone out of my bag. I connected to the Internet, not really interested in talking to my sister (since she was rarely interested in talking to me when she found a handsome enough guy). I opened a page with the news, but I instantly regretted it. On the page, there was in bloody red letters written:_ANOTHER MAN BRUTALLY KILLED LAST NIGHT. _

I frowned at the title, than I scrolled the page down. I had noticed a few articles about cases of brutal murders all over LA for the past few weeks, and dad did mention some of them, sometimes (since mom hated it when he talked about people getting killed anywhere near me and Trina), but I never really thought about it. Until now, of course, because the article brought up Beck and Jade's warning from earlier, and suddenly, I could picture their threat very graphically.

Instead of thinking of my own funeral and Jade dressed all in black (maybe it would be white, since it would be my funeral, not someone's she liked, right?) standing above my grave, saying 'I told you so' in that venomous voice of her, I concentrated on the article.

_The police found a body of a dead man this morning, in the woods near the Hollywood sign. The fact that it was, actually, a man had to be proven by a close inspection of the body by the Chief Medical Examiner of country of Los Angeles, because the body was so devastated that it wasn't possible to determine the sex of the victim on the first sight._

"_Body was almost completely torn apart," says Officer Jackes, the man who found the victim. "There was a lot of blood all over, but none in his body, his bones were sticking out of his corpse and his meat was practically ripped off of him on many places. It was horrible."_

_The head investigator, Detective Carlos proclaimed that, for the smoothness of the investigation, the name of the victim or more details to the murder won't be released until after the case is solved. _

"_But I don't believe this was done by a human. Only an animal could do something terrible like that," were Detective Carlos's last words. Now, we can only assume what could have happened. But the zoologists doubt that some big animal would live here, because the city is full of people who would either catch it already, or kill it. That leads us to only one conclusion – there's a brutal murderer somewhere in the LA…_

I closed the browser after that, not able to read anymore. My stomach felt like it was floating in ice-cold water and my head was spinning from all those images of a pile of flesh, bones and internal organs that had once been a man. In my mind, it seemed awfully lot like a scene from a horror movie Jade would come up with.

"Hey, you hear me? What kind of stuff?" Trina asked as I put my phone down.

"For example, what kind of an animal could tear a man into shreds," I said quickly. Even though we both knew that her question was referring to my thoughts before I read the article, I didn't want to let her know that my thoughts had been consumed by a certain black-haired rocker, so I chose the half-truth. I wasn't lying, per say, since I was (right now) thinking about what I'd just read.

"What are you going on about?" she asked, frowning at me.

"Eyes on the road, Treen, or you might just meet the old lady that always seems to be there when I'm repeating my driver's tests," I reminded, to what she instantly turned her head to the road. "And I was talking about the cases Dad had mentioned."

"You mean those where they find people torn into pieces with almost no blood in them?"

"Yes," I nodded my head. "They found someone last night."

"Sheesh, are you sure you want to go for the run tonight, sista?"

"You know I cannot not go. It's not like I can control it or anything, I just have to, or I won't be able to fall asleep at night," I said, frowning slightly. There were times where I would rather stay at home, snuggle up in my bed with my Cuddle-me Cathy doll and watch some shows on my pear-pod until I fall asleep with the show still going on. But I couldn't. My body needed to get rid of the energy, which meant that I had to go for a run every night, so I could sleep.

"Well, I don't want Dad telling me that they had found you like that! I would have to wear black all year! I would look totally like that punk-freak West and that would not help my reputation around the college." She then went on a ramble about how hard it was to make an image of herself that everyone would like and how she needed to keep that image to make every boy like her. Some things never change, do they?

After we got home, I grabbed something to eat and went to my room to do my homework. It was pretty difficult, since I haven't been moving for about an hour and a half and my HEF condition just decided it would be for the best to show up, like always after I ate something. I started to consider going for a run now, but I knew that if I did that, I wouldn't be back until late in the night, anyways, and then I wouldn't be able to ger any work done. So, even though I felt like going crazy, I stayed in my room, pacing around it with my textbooks and notebooks in my hands, as I studied for the next day.

As the sun started to set, I threw the book for my Methods of Singing class onto the bed. My body hummed with the energy that had stored in it, my skin tingled and my muscles screamed for some much-needed exercise. So I picked my training outfit (for today it were blue pants and blue sleeveless t-shirt with three black streaks on each side), put it on, pulled my hair back into a ponytail and I was ready to go.

I ran down the stairs, with my phone and ear-buds tugged safely in the pocket of my jogging trousers. I took a bottle of water from the fridge just as my Dad came home, still in his uniform.

"Hey, Dad," I smiled at him, closing the fridge.

"Hi, honey," he returned my smile, but then his expression turned serious. "Don't stay late tonight, okay? The city is dangerous."

"Dad, you know I need to get the energy out of my system, and the workout is the most effective way," I frowned at him. The images of the torn man lying on the ground in his own blood rushed into my mind and my body shook slightly from the discomfort and cold fear that crawled onto the small of my back and settled there. I knew why Dad didn't want me to stay long on my run, and quite honestly, I didn't really want to do that, either, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do and right now, I needed to go for a long enough run.

"You know, I was thinking of buying you some machine so you wouldn't have to go running outside, since you always refuse the gyms and fitness centers," he admitted as he let his hat fall onto the couch.

"And risk Trina asking you for a new car or something similar?" I asked with a risen eyebrow. I had to fight off a Jade-like smirk that threatened to take over my face as my Dad's face fell slightly and he frowned, deep in thought.

"Yeah, you're right, probably not the best idea," he admitted after a while. "But I still don't understand why you don't want to join the gym again. It's far safer than jogging around the park in the night. And you know that first equipment was…"

"Made for people with HEF, I know that. But… Ever since _that _happened, I don't want to go there or anywhere near there," I said, frowning slightly. Just to explain things, '_that' _means that almost a year ago, when I still had been going to the gym to get the energy out of my system (because, as my Dad mentioned, all the machines and shit really were invented because people with my condition and it had seemed quite ungrateful not to use what was given to me), one guy had decided to follow me. He had been doing that for about a week before he had decided it was time to act. One night, he had followed me into the locker-rooms, drugged me slightly with some shit so I couldn't fight him, and dragged me into one of the small shower-stalls. Fortunately, as he was just about to do whatever to me (I don't know what he wanted, because if I remember correctly, he didn't put his pants down), some girl walked in and stopped him. The less fortunate thing was that he managed to get away before the police got there (they had found him dead three months after that, actually, but that was only thanks to my Dad and his thirst for revenge and justice). Ever since that day, I hated gyms and small spaces, they reminded me of that day way too much. And that's why I refused to step a foot into the gym. "Besides, I enjoy jogging outside far more than using some machine for that. The fresh air and slight wind in my hair is way better than the smell of sweat and heat all around me. And nothing had happened so far, Dad. There's no need to worry, right?"

"Okay, fine," he nodded his head at me after a short while. "But stay safe, little beetle." (Don't give me that look he called me that since I was ten, that's when I had fallen in love with The Beetles. Well, they are great!)

I only smiled, walked over to him and gave him a long hug (don't look at me like that, I've always loved hugging and cuddling and every one of those 'display of affection' things), even with my parents, since I didn't have a boyfriend/girlfriend who I could do that with. And I also loved my parents, so it's only normal I show that to them, right?

"I'll be back as soon as I can," I promised him. When I felt him nod his head, I pulled away and, checking for everything I needed for the run, I went out of the door.

The evening was pleasantly warm, actually warm enough for a slow walk, not for a run. I didn't really like it when it was like that outside when I was running, but I guess there are three things you can't choose: your family, your disease and weather. And so, even though the humid, warm air was pretty unfitting for what I was about to do, I plunged the buds in my ears, put the MP3 on my pear-phone on and started jogging straight towards the Griffith Park, where I always went for a run.

With my body moving and energy slowly, slowly slipping away, I could let my mind wander. I thought of that dead man they had found, and about many of similar cases, where the victims were completely torn apart. Then I thought of what Jade had said, about my funeral and her being there just to mock me one last time.

And then, I thought about Jade in general. She was the most stunning, most beautiful and most mysterious person I had ever known. She was sassy and nasty, and sarcastic, and honest, and smart, and beautiful, and plainly perfect. But she herself always said that she hated perfect people, because they were always hiding something. So, if she was one of those perfect people, what was she hiding? Was this mystery about hiding her weak spot that would ruin her reputation for good, like liking something cute or something childish (and I don't mean bunnies, I knew about her love for them for quite some time, well, I had known since she posted the 'What I love' video on The Slap)? Or was it something more, something deeper, something far more dangerous?

Well, it couldn't be about her family since I already pretty much knew that her father wasn't fond of art and his daughter's writing and acting. I also knew that her childhood wasn't a happy one, quite the opposite. Though I didn't know what happened with her mother, I was sure the veil of mystery she always kept around herself wasn't about any of that. So, what was it about?

As I thought, I didn't really notice where I was going, or that it was already dark outside, especially in the park where the trees were hiding the ground and everything on it in their shades. I just heard the music pounding in my ears, felt the slight impacts from my feet hitting the ground, and thought of Jade. That was, until a weird feeling crept its way into the back of my mind. It was a cold emotion, a one that sent shivers down my spine and made my body move faster. I didn't notice it at first, but then, when I actually shivered from the coldness, the thoughts of Jade left my mind and fear-filed images of my completely torn body lying motionlessly, lifelessly on this very path took their place,

I stopped, taking notice of the darkness around me (when did I get into the part of the park with no functioning street lamps?). My chest heaved with rapid breaths, my muscles seemed to scream their joy of finally being stretched and having enough oxygen. However, my skin covered in warm sweat was now burning with the coldness all around me and my breaths came out of my mouth in puffs of steam. But, it had been almost unpleasantly warm just a few minutes ago! The temperature couldn't have just dropped a few degrees in a few minutes, could it?

The feeling in the back of my mind intensified, taking over me like a flood of icy-cold water. My back seemed to be caught in permanent waterfall of shivers and my muscles suddenly couldn't bring themselves to move, even though every one of my instincts told me to get the fuck away from there.

Straining all the power inside of me, I pulled the ear-buds out of my ears, so now, instead of the music, a loud, cold silence was bumping into my ears, until my head hurt as if someone just hit me with a hammer at least four times. The silence, however, wasn't normal. It was tense and filled with fear, which was, actually, my own. I turned my head from side to side, looking for the source of that creepy feeling.

The hairs on the back of my head stood up and my eyes widened. Someone, or some_thing_ was watching me.

It was the death of mine. I will get raped, mugged and killed like nothing by some homeless guy. My parents will be sad for the rest of their lives and Trina will make her own walk-in closet out of my room. And Jade will enjoy my funeral very much, so much actually, that she might even sing a song for me there (that would be the only one I'll ever get from her, so I guess my death won't be totally worthless). And then she will laugh at my corpse (or what will be left of it, anyways) in the coffin. I'm sure she'll even help with burying me.

A small, almost way too quiet sound made me snap out of my thoughts and turn my head around. The darkness and the silence that was surrounding me were way too thick; I couldn't see a thing. The fear that had been near my waist now crawled its way up my back, its cold hands embraced me and clung to me like a passionate lover (a one that I didn't want at all, thank you very much). It was almost like in those horror movies, where some beast is killing people and I was the main course on the menu for tonight. I was left there, without the ability to move and with only the knowledge that something was right there, to just wait for whoever was doing this to come out and have their way with me. Well, at least, I will get to see who was killing the people around the LA (though it will be worthless when I'm dead, won't it?).

The sound came again, though now from my right. My head jerked to look there, horrified at all the images I suddenly had in my mind of what I could find. I thought of huge, drunk man dressed in torn clothes. I thought of a group of men like that, ready to rape me or kill me, or kill me and rape me, or rape me, kill me and then rape me again. But nothing my imagination could come up with was as scary as the real thing.

A pair of big, a bit narrow, venomously green eyes was staring at me from the bushes to my right. The black pupils were oblong and thin, like two columns of black in all that green that almost shone in the darkness. The eyes had a dangerous and somewhat predatory glint to them, something that made me think of blood and death and claws and teeth and war-cries and roars. They were eyes of an animal, and according to the deep, growling sound that came from their direction, it wasn't a small and cute one, like a bunny or a kitten or anything harmless.

The growling intensified and the dangerous sparkle in the eyes that were staring at me changed into a deathly, though quite amused glow. A soft, quiet thudding sound echoed in the darkness and the eyes got a few feet closer. I wanted to move, I wanted to run away without turning back, I wanted to get home, to the safety of my Dad's embrace, but my muscles seemed to declare a full-body strike, because I couldn't get any part of my body to move. Frozen with fear and with my heart trying to burst its way out of my chest to get as far from the danger as possible, I could only stand there and listen to the growling that got louder with each passing second.

Another thudding sound echoed in the darkness and now, I could see the figure of the animal that was watching me. It had strong, long paws; massive, muscular body and head that seemed just a little bit too small for it. Its small, round ears were pressed against its neck and the lips of its oblate mouth were lifted up, baring yellow teeth, sharp and long as my middle finger (it's only a guess, I didn't know how long they were and I didn't want to know, especially because knowing that would mean actually having those fangs anywhere near me and I wasn't okay with that idea in the slightest).

The animal made a few more steps towards me and now I could clearly see it. It was a gray tiger with white stripes on its fur. Its green eyes were watching me intently, though with a glimmer of amusement, as if it knew that I couldn't move out of fear and was quite enjoying that fact.

It was standing only a few feet away from me. One elegant leap was all it would take for it to get to me and kill me, and with my dysfunctional muscles there was nothing I could do to prevent that. I was at its mercy, and according to how amused and scary the look in the tiger's eyes became, I couldn't count on that. It would probably just play with me a little before killing me, like a cat plays with a mouse (what a shame I'm gonna be the mouse in this game, though they are kinda cute).

But hey, wasn't it the dangerous situations that made the hormonal glands release adrenalin into the system? I'm asking because the adrenalin made almost everything possible. Almost no pain, almost inhuman strength, great senses… that was all possible in situations like these, right? And, if not, it was always situations like these that the heroes of those fantasy tales found their special powers, right? It never was when they were baking cookies in the safety of their homes that they found out they could control the elements or stuff like that. Maybe I could do something like that too, right?

The lips of the tiger got even higher and together with the amusement in its eyes it looked as if it were smirking (I hope it weren't, because that would mean some really, really bad things for me and maybe a good meal for the tiger). It lowered his head lightly, so now it was looking up at me and if it weren't for the glint in its eyes that was telling me that something bad was about to happen, I would think it was actually bowing in front of me.

Well, it definitely wasn't a bow, because very quickly, the rest of the body followed the head as the animal lowered itself, placing its front paws closer together and pushing its rear slightly up, in a position of a cat on hunt. The tiger flashed me one last amused glance, before the front of its body lifted up in the air.

Everything slowed down. I could practically see the movements of strong muscles under the skin and short fur as the animal leapt up, letting its whole weight (which might even be about five hundred pounds, but that was only my guess) to fall onto its strong, hind paws. Then, the tiger pushed itself up into the air completely with the strength of the muscles in its body, and I found myself admiring not only the strength and the powerful aura that was all around the animal, but also its deathly elegance and grace.

I wanted to move, to jump out of the way, but I couldn't, and the animal was (still somewhat slowly, as if we were in a slowed motion) nearing me. I could just watch it, mesmerized and terrified by it.

And then, something hit the tiger mid-jump from my left and sent it somewhere into the side.

The speed was back to normal and suddenly, my brain wasn't able to register everything that was happening. I could only see some pile of white and gray on the ground, rolling around, growling, hissing, roaring and whining occasionally, but I couldn't understand what I saw. The sounds decanted into some senseless cluster that was thundering in my ears, threatening to burst my ear-drums out.

The pile of white and gray now became only a roaring, growling smear as it rolled all around, threw itself repeatedly into the ground, making bits of clay, dirt and grass fly all around. I couldn't see what exactly was going on and I didn't really care, because with that thing doing what it was doing, I could move again. And (yes, you've guessed it) I let go of everything I had in my hands and started to run. My energy capacity and the HEF condition of my body should give me enough fuel for me to run all the way home in the highest speed I could manage.

But it didn't. Only after a few steps, I felt myself getting weak. I never got all breathy and tired when I jogged, but right now, my breaths became shallow and fast as I tried to get away. This time, my body protested because of exhaustion that suddenly settled inside of me, making my muscles sore and stiff. I've never had that feeling, I've never been exhausted or tired before, so the feeling was completely new to me (and let me tell you, if it weren't for the tiger that actually wanted to make me its diner for tonight, I would really be enjoying the feeling).

After I ran a few feet, I had to stop. The white-and-gray pile was still there, still rolling and thrashing about, though now that I wasn't standing so close to it, it seemed a little bit less chaotic. It was almost as if two animals were fighting each other.

With one final roar, the tiger got thrown into the ground, with some other gigantic animal on top of it. I didn't have enough time to get a better look at it, because something black leapt right in front of me, hiding the fight scene from me (I felt almost disappointed, I really wanted to see what will happen). The something was as elegant as the tiger, with a similar body structure, but it was a bit smaller and thinner, its body seemed more lithe and somewhat relaxed. The animal looked at me and I realized I was staring at the face of a stark-black cat with deep, green-brown eyes (and it was quite a beautiful face, let me tell you, not many cats are that pretty in the face). The eyes reminded me of the tiger, with the black columns of pupils and the intense stare, but there was something different about them. Maybe it was the fact that the amused danger was missing, or that the stare of the cat didn't make my muscles froze in fear, or the fact that the cat didn't look like it was going to kill me (quite the opposite, actually, it seemed rather friendly).

A loud, roaring sound could be heard from behind the cat. However, the sound got cut off by a loud growl which was followed by a quick yelp filled with pain, the sound of bones crushing, and then there was dead silence, that was deafening with its strength. A sudden feeling of weight being lifted from my shoulders mixed together with safety made me let out a quiet sigh (no matter how quiet, it still cut through the silence like a warm knife cuts through butter and it left some kind of a tension hanging in the air).

The cat then stepped back, with all its lithe elegance, and I could finally see what it was trying to hide from me.

The tiger was lying on its side now, with its gray fur covered in deep red, almost black blood, cuts, bite-marks and scratches. There was a lot of blood around its neck, and a lot of it was running through its fur and onto the ground, where it spilled into an ever-growing puddle. There was a metallic smell of warm, almost hot, fresh blood coming from the animal, and it almost made me vomit (I swear I could feel my stomach doing flip-flops at that smell, and not the good kind of flip-flops).

And above it, also covered in scratches, bites and blood, but in a far less amount, stood a snow-white wolf. It was breathing hard, its jaws were slightly ajar, leaving its long, narrow muzzle, covered in the deep red blood (probably from the tiger) opened. I could clearly see the tongue, that was now red from killing the tiger (though I had a strong feeling that if it weren't covered in that red liquid, it would be a nice shade of pink); and its fangs, pearl-white, now with droplets of blood on them, about two and half inches long and deadly sharp. Its body was huge, massive, strong, yet somewhat elegant and beautiful. Its shoulder-blades were somewhere in line with my shoulders and its head was about as high from the ground as my own was. It was looking right into my eyes, and its stare was nothing like the tiger's, or the cat's. It seemed… raw, hungry, yet gentle, soft and somewhat hungry though not in the 'I-want-to-eat-you-alive' sense of hungry.

It took me a white to notice the color of its eyes, but when I did, they took me aback yet again, this time with how beautiful they were. The round pupils were staring at me from the middle of wide irises which had the deepest, shiniest, most beautiful color of jade (honestly, even the gems themselves would go pale in shame if they saw the eyes of the wolf). They were so… captivating. I felt as if they were calling me to come closer. There were emotions in them, real emotions that I couldn't read, but they seemed…gentle and soft, caring. There was a promise in those eyes, a promise of safety that made me want to just walk over to that wolf, run my fingers through its thick fur and hug it close to my body. It might seem crazy, but with the look those eyes were giving me, I knew the wolf won't hurt me.

The wolf let out a warning growl; it was a terrifying sound from the back of its throat, though now, it didn't seem as terrifying as it should. I dare to say it was even somehow… calming and protective. As if that one sound was supposed to make all the dangerous creatures out there stay away from us. Maybe it was.

The cat turned around then, walked to the side of its companion and turned yet again to look at me. The difference between the two of them was almost unbelievable. While the cat seemed curious, somewhat happy and friendly, as if it wanted to play (and I mean like a domestic cat play, not the kind of game the tiger wanted to play with me), the wolf looked dangerous, with the unreadable glint in its eyes and mouth slightly open to let out still rapid breaths and occasional growls. They were like two opposites mixed together into one object, making it work perfectly; like two poles of a magnet. Completely different, yet they created something that was able to protect and to kill, and both of them had their place in it. Was it possible for them to be mates?

I emerged from my thought when I noticed the cat taking a few steps towards me. Its head was leaned forward; its small muzzle was shaking slightly as it was taking in my scent. The curious expression didn't disappear, but there was something more in its stare, some kind of an honest happiness and naivety. It reminded me of something, someone, but I didn't know what or who.

The cat took another step forwards and now, we were just about nine feet away from each other. One step closer and I would be able to pet the cat's head. I could already imagine the sleek fur under my palm and in between my fingers. Was the black fur as silky as it looked?

I didn't know why exactly I outstretched my hand towards the animal. I wasn't sure why I would want to try to pet it and risk the possibility of getting my hand bitten off, but I did and the cat didn't seem to be opposite to the idea, quite the opposite, actually. It seemed more than willing to be petted.

A low, warning, dangerous growl made us both look at the wolf. Its lips were higher than before, showing off its long, sharp fangs. The green color of its eyes darkened slightly, which only high-lined the look of anger and hurt it had on.

My hand instantly fell to my hip and my eyes refused to look away from the wolf. For some reason I had the feeling that I should apologize to it, even though I didn't know why, I mean, I haven't done anything wrong, right? Well, if they were mates, maybe touching one of them wasn't exactly the best idea...

A strong feeling of guilt settled in my chest. But, for some reason, it didn't feel as if it was guilt from almost touching the wolf's mate. It felt more as if it was because of me, as if the wolf had some issue with me touching the cat because it was _me _touching the cat (you understand what I mean, right?).

I was just about to apologize when the wolf cut me off by placing it right front paw slightly forward, leaning the front part of its body down and showing off its teeth even more. Then it clasped its teeth so hard it made a ringing sound. That, together with the dangerous look of anger in its eyes made me turn around in panic and run for it as fast as my newly exhausted muscles allowed. Indeed, adrenalin is a fascinating thing.

Just like before, I wasn't watching where I was going. This time, however, instead of music blasting into my ears, all I could concentrate on was the pain in my muscles (especially in my left side, where the muscles were tired out not only by the running, but also by breathing), the wild beating of my heart and the and the loud pumping of my blood in my ears.

That was until a loud howl cut through the night and through the veil of sounds in my ears. It made me stop for a while, to listen if the source of the sound was close. But when I realized what exactly the source of the sound might be, I took off as fast as I could.

A few more sounds made their way into my ears. None of them was the howl of the wolf, and that made them that much more dangerous and frightening. Because the wolf was good it protected me. But other creatures might not (and I was sure as hell they wouldn't be, if they found me) as nice as the wolf. I could hear enraged roars, warning growls, sounds of heavy steps falling onto the ground (and I can assure you they weren't mine) and quiet shuffling of movements through the bushes. They were all quiet sounds, and that was making them far more frightening.

I didn't know where I was. There was darkness all around me; I could barely see three feet in front of me. The only thing I could tell about my surroundings was that there was an asphalt road under my feet, which meant I was still somewhere in the park.

A soft light appeared a few feet to my right and it was getting stronger with each passing second. Through the sounds of my heartbeat, shallow, fast breaths and shuffles of the animals, I could hear a strangely familiar purr of a car.

Soon enough, the lights changed their trajectory and were shining right at me as the car emerged from behind the bend covered by bushes. And it wasn't just any car, it was the newest model of a stark-black BMW X5 - Jade's car (she had bought it three months back, after her father had an accident while driving her old car, so he gave her money to buy another one, and as we found out, she likes big cars).

The car stopped a few feet away from me, the highlights shining right onto me didn't allow me to see anything but the brightness of them (now I knew what a deer feels when it gets caught in the headlights, not that I ever wanted to). Then the door on the driver's side opened and she stepped out, clad in only a black, sleeveless Nirvana t-shirt, red and black checked flannel thrown over her shoulders, black, tight-fitting jeans and fighting boots, and even with the confused, almost angry looking scowl on her face, she looked breathtakingly beautiful and so sexy that she made my wildly beating heart beat even wilder.

"Vega?" she asked with confusion and slight annoyance in her voice. "What the fuck are you doing here?!"

"I-I...err, I... I was..." I was just going to tell her about how my nightly routine run ended up with three gigantic animals fighting because of me, but then I realized that I couldn't just tell her that. She hadn't seen them, she wouldn't believe me. She would laugh at me and call me crazy (or something even worse, because, this is Jade we're talking about, she loves to make fun of people), and I really didn't need to give her more reasons to do that. "I was just running..."

"Yeah, and that's why you're looking as if you had been chased by a wolf," she remarked (oh, she didn't even know how right she was!) with sarcasm and amusement in her voice that kind of reminded me of the dead tiger. I stared to wonder if it was still there or if the wolf and the cat ate it.

"Yeah, well, I like to run fast," I shrugged, trying for it to look normal, even though the pain in my muscles from the exhaustion almost made me wince.

She casted a nasty look at me (and I have to tell you, I now understood why Robbie pisses himself every time he is on the receiving end of that glare), but then she shook her head. "Anyways, that's not what I meant, Vega. I told you not to go out tonight, yet you go into the part of the park where there's not a soul within a few miles away, practically begging for someone to attack you! Do you ever use that big brain of yours for other things than school and minding other's businesses?!"

"Excuse me?!" I exclaimed, automatically going into a defense mode. I've never really cared about what insults other people threw at me, but she could get under my skin (probably because my not-so-little crush on her). "I always use my brain! And I don't see what's wrong with helping people! If nothing, the fact that I help them means that I'm not some cold, heartless... person! You should try to help others, it means that you care for them and-..."

"Shut up, Vega!" she barked out in a low, but a very dangerous voice.

"I'm not going to 'shut up', you started thi-..."

In two long strides, she was right in front of me, turning me around, pressing my back against her front and silencing me with her hand over my mouth. It was all so fast that I didn't even register it until I was held firmly in her arms with no way of escaping.

"Whah ahm hum dhminhm?!" I tried to ask her, but it came out muffled because of her hand. I started to thrash about and yelling at her through her hand, trying to free myself from her grasp, but she only gripped me tighter, pressing me harder into her, making any chances of escaping I had, no matter how small, disappear (I've never know she was that strong).

"Shhh," she cooed quietly, her hot breath hit my ear with every one of her exhales. "Don't fight it, Vega."

Her voice was soothing in my ear, her grasp on me was strong, yet it meant safety and protection and my muscles suddenly relaxed. I felt the exhaustion slowly claw its way into my body as my energy seeped away far faster than during my run, and it was one of the best feelings on this planet.

I let myself relax almost completely against Jade, and that's when I noticed how tense she was. She was looking ahead of us, her grip on me was spasmodic and her breath came out sharp and shallow. I could just imagine her face, muscles tightened in alert and eyes quickly moving from spot to spot, searching for something that might not be even there.

And then I heard it. The quiet shuffling of the movements in the bushes around us. The steps that were almost too quiet to be heard. And the sound of deep breathing from somewhere, though I didn't know where exactly, because it all seemed to come from every direction, from every place around us that was covered by shadow and darkness. It was all there, the beasts were all there, watching us, probably talking to each other about who of the two of us will be eaten first.

There was tension in the air, a lot of it. It was burning my skin and making my muscles shake slightly. As if both sides, we and the beasts hidden in the darkness, were waiting for the other to make the first move.

Well, Jade made it easy.

"Get in the car, Vega," she whispered quietly into my ear, slowly loosing the grip she had on me. I tried to question her, to fight my own way out, like a wild animal when it sees a chance to break free, but she cut me off again by squeezing me tightly one last time and saying out loud: "Get in the car!"

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><p><strong>Well, that's it for today! Hope you enjoyed the chapter (I personally like this one better than the first one)! So, let me know what you think, ask questions, tell me what went over in your head while you were reading this, give me some ideas, tell me what I'm doing wrong and what is right, because without readers who will let the author know what they think there can't be a good story!<strong>

**Anyways, see you soon, I don't know when exactly, with the next chapter! **


	3. She Does Care

**Hey guys! **

**I know I kept you waiting and I'm really sorry! But I had some issues with my PC (again, and it's really getting on my nerves already), so I've lost everything I had and I had to write a chapter and half over again, so, yes, it took some time. Again, I'm sorry for the delay, but it's here now. **

**I don't really know what to say, except for the fact that you might really be surprised with this and the next chapters. A lot of you said that the wolf was Jade and I'm not saying you're wrong. But I'm also not saying you're right. You'll just have to wait and see how it all turns out, but the more I think of the storyline, the messier the it gets. I really hope to turn this into a tale filled with unpredictable situations, though there might be some clues here and there. Okay, I'm rambling, sorry. **

**I want to thank ****Azkadellio for beta-ing this chapter, I really appreciate it! **

**Now, enough with the rambling, bring your drink, sit down, enjoy the reading and don't forget I'm impatiently awaiting your reviews! I really want to know if you like my work and what you think of the development of the plot. Well, enjoy!**

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><p><strong>For The Love of a Demon<strong>

**Chapter 3: She Does Care**

I didn't dare to argue with her. The rustle of the presences around us made it clear that without her, I didn't have a chance of getting out of here alive. So I did as I was told; I ran towards the passenger's side of the car as soon as she let go of me. Opening the door with much more force than was needed, I practically threw myself onto the seat in the same time she got in. She then lowered the handbrake, the motor of the car roared to let its life be known to the world and we took off in a speed that surprised me.

The way from the park was, surprisingly, very short, very fast and filled with tension (yeah, the last part was not as surprising as it might seem). Jade was looking into the rear-view mirror every few seconds with her eyes narrowed in concentration. I did the same a few times, but there wasn't anything following us. Well, there was nothing on the road, anyways, though I have to admit I was really worried about the things that were hidden in the bushes and in between trees around us.

Once we got out of the park, Jade headed for the parts of the city where there were more people. Somehow, she knew about the beasts and she knew how to avoid them. Maybe she could explain? To be honest, I didn't believe she would, but it's worth a try, right? Maybe she'll surprise me and I won't have to search through the darkest parts of the internet or the library to find information about those things.

While I waited for my breath and heart-rate to slow down, I took my phone out of my pocket and found the voice record application. I still couldn't believe that all of that happened and with the exhaustion in my muscles I could easily just pretend this all was a bad dream. Actually, a part of me wanted to believe that nothing had happened, that I returned home after my jog and fell asleep and that I'm still sleeping. But… the memory of the white wolf stopped me. I couldn't just forget about it, I refused.

So I turned on the voice recorder on my phone, just in case I would need some proof that this really happened. Yes, it might seem crazy right now, I mean, why would I want to remember all of this? It was dangerous and dark and scary as hell. But... I wanted to know what they were and how to get to them, I wanted to know why the wolf and the cat protected me and why they didn't kill me when they had the chance. And, I wanted to know why I felt that weird... something towards the wolf.

"What... what were those things?" I asked after making sure that the voice record was on. My breath was still quite rapid and shallow (that happened a lot to me when she was around, what can I say, she takes my breath away), but now, that we were out of the park and out of the danger and the adrenalin got out of my system, I couldn't help but relax into the seat. I finally felt at ease, finally there was no energy buzzing around in me, making me go crazy. And I enjoyed the peace very much, even though it, somewhat, came from the beasts.

"Demons," she said, again looking in the rear-view mirror, even though we were far enough from the park already. The lights of the street-lamps and the shiny names of various bars were making it seem as if it was still day, making me narrow my eyes because of the brightness, the people were all over the sidewalks, talking, laughing and doing everything people like them did. Even the traffic, even though not as bad as through the day, was bad enough. It was making the city of angels seem as a city where people didn't need to sleep. Well, I guess some thought they didn't, because of how they lived. Maybe, thanks to the HEF, I might survive without sleeping as well...

"Repulsive beasts who would kill without a second thought. In their human form, they are indistinguishable from normal people. But, once the darkness falls, they take on their demonic form and rage throughout the city. They can change at will, but rarely do it in the sunlight. They don't want anyone to know about them."

"D-Demons?" I stuttered at my own question as my head jerked to look at her. "What do you mean 'demons'? Things like that aren't even real! They cannot be! Demons are like the monsters hiding under the bed, right? They don't exist... wait, where are we going?"

"Nowhere, really. At least for now, we're just driving around. We need to shake them off of our tail. I don't want them to learn where you live, they would come back for you," she almost growled without even looking at me. "And they are as real as you, me and rock music. If you've seen them, you should be grateful to whatever force it was that kept them from killing you. They would tear you apart and eat you half alive and still screaming if they had the chance."

"It wasn't a force that saved me, it was a white wolf," I said, well, I actually almost barked out, before I could catch myself. Somehow, I wanted everyone to show respect to the wolf and the cat, I wanted to protect them, at least from bad words of people, just like they had protected me earlier. They were proud beings, honorable, I could tell as much from the short meeting we had had, and I didn't want anyone to throw dirt on their names.

"A white wolf?" she repeated almost in disbelief, this time looking me straight in the eyes. Her pupils were dilated and there was a somewhat wild look in them, a one that I couldn't read at all. There were far too many emotions in those blue orbs for me to read them let alone understand them. "Never get close to it again! Avoid all of them, but that one especially! Make sure you're as far away from it as possible!"

"You know it?"

"Yes, unfortunately, I do. And quite well, if you must know. It's one of the most dangerous demons out there. It can kill another demon within a few seconds, it would tear you apart before you could even blink," she growled out, shifting her attention back to road. "It's unpredictable. Strong. It's a heartless and powerful beast. It's a monster without the slightest bit of mercy in its blackened soul, if they have one. If you have seen it, and you're still breathing, then you either can run very, very fast, or its stomach was full at that moment. If I were to guess, I would go for the second option, because it's really fast."

"It didn't try to kill me, it protected me!" I argued with a frown on my face.

"That beast doesn't do protecting people, just like I don't do ballet, Vega!" she growled, looking at me for a split second, before turning her gaze back to the road. She was frowning (more than it's normal for her, which is saying a lot) and I could clearly feel the anger radiating from her like heat radiates from the sun. She seemed furious about something, dangerous and wild, with her jaws clenched and skin paler than normal. And yet, somehow, she still managed to look breathtakingly beautiful and sexy enough to make my panties wet (I don't know how she did that, but she did and I was very tempted to jump her right there).

It took me a lot of self-control to actually stay seated and a whole lot more of rational thinking to actually concentrate (even though only partly, since I couldn't just forget about her beauty) on the conversation we were having. Well, by now, it was an argument (I'm starting to think that's the only way we can actually talk to each other), and I knew by the amount of argues I have had with her up until now that waiting to think of a good comeback (even though the only thing I did think of most of the times was how much I wanted to try an angry sex and then make-up sex with her) made that comeback shitty, sometimes to the points where she would literary ignore it. So I forced my mind to concentrate on the problem on hand and quickly got out an answer to her previous sentence.

"There was a tiger that wanted to kill me! The wolf killed it and then it just stood there and looked at me. I'm telling you, it protected me!" I said with as much anger and defensiveness as I could muster in that second. "If it weren't for the wolf, I would be dead by now! Torn apart like all those people that have been found lately! I only have the wolf to thank for my life now, Jade!"

"And I'm telling you that it didn't protect you! It maybe just chose to hate the tiger more than you in that moment! But if it finds you again, if you will let it find you, it will eat you. It's a dangerous monster, Vega, it kills! It's not capable of protecting someone! And even if it were, it doesn't have a reason to protect you! But it has every reason to kill and eat you! Don't get close to it, don't get close to any of them! And the next time I say don't, it means don't, capisce?" she asked, almost growling. There was a weird tone to her voice, a one I have heard many times, but I could never understand. This time, however, I did realize what it was. Worry. She was worried about me. That thought alone made my chest feel warm and a swarm of butterflies found their way into my stomach.

Many questions popped up in my head at once and I didn't know which one to ask first. Had she ever met my wolf savior? Had she seen the demons from as close as I had? How did she know so much about them? What did she have to do with them? Why does she know all that stuff about how to hide from them and why to do it?

But, from all those options, I chose probably the stupidest one. "Why would it want to eat me when it didn't look like it wanted to hurt me at all?"

"Because that's what it does. What they all do," she said, frowning at the red light that shone angrily above us. "They feed on people. How do you think all those myths about werewolves and vampires arose? Definitely not because of a dream of some drunk idiot who couldn't tell a dog from a chicken! Some of the demons eat human meat, some drink their blood, some kill right away and some like to play with their pray. But every one of them feeds on humans. Especially humans like you."

"What do you mean, 'humans like me'?"

"Stupid and naïve," she barked at me, frowning. The car started moving and quickly sped up when the green light came on, which saved Jade from telling me more. I let her, for a short while, since with her, one can never get far by pushing her too hard (now that I think of it, maybe pushing into her hard would get me farther).

"How do you know about them?" I asked after a while of silence. We were near the Hollywood Arts now and it didn't look like Jade was about to drive me home. I know she said we needed to shake the demons off, but wasn't it enough already? I couldn't see them and the creepy feeling that had frozen me inside out earlier was completely gone. "And why were you in the park?"

"I was in the park because they were in the park. You cannot kill if you don't have your prey near. And they always hunt where there aren't as many people. Parks, forests, abandoned parts of villages or towns, dark alleys, there are many places where you can search for them, but I don't recommend that. Not many people returned from their search when they decided they wanted to see demons. And as for how I know so much about them, I had been studying them for a while now. They are quite interesting beings, but also very dangerous ones. They would kill you without hesitation," she said almost angrily, looking at me for a second, before turning her stare back towards the road. I had to bite my tongue to not remind her that the wolf and the cat saved me, and they didn't look like hurting me. Actually, the cat seemed rather nice and friendly.

"But… how do you know they exist? I didn't, until tonight!"

"I don't wanna talk about it," she growled, this time with suppressed anger in her voice. I could see that she refused to look at me, her muscles were tense and her eyes darker than ever before. It was the first time I noticed that they were, actually, greenish-blue, not that sky-blue like I thought they were. "You already know what you need to know, stay away from them and you might live the fairytale you want so badly! Forget what you saw and what you heard. It's nothing you need to remember. Maybe, if you forget about them, they'll forget about you and that's the best thing that can happen to you."

"C'mon, Jade, tell me!" I frowned at her. I don't really give orders, especially not to her (and the whispered orders for her to cum around my fingers that I gave her quite frequently in my dreams didn't count), I mean, she's Jade West, nobody gives orders to her. But, for some reason, this made me angry. She didn't understand that the wolf and the cat were protecting me, and I didn't understand why she hated demons so much. I wanted us both to know, to understand what the other felt. But with her stubbornness and cold demeanor it couldn't get farther from possible and that, for some reason, made me very, very angry.

She didn't respond. She only gripped the steering-wheel tighter in her hands so hard her knuckles went white and she refused to look at me. It never made me angry when she ignored me, I could understand she just didn't want to deal with something and she didn't actually want to tell me to fuck off. But now, now I didn't want to understand, let alone respect that decision. She was supposed to tell me everything! She was the only person who knew something about those 'demons', as she called them, and she was supposed to tell me what she knew, so I wouldn't have to look for them and get killed while trying to find the wolf and the cat.

"Don't you dare ignore me, Jadelyn West! I asked you a question and I want an answer!" I growled (oh my gosh, I actually growled! I don't do that, I have never done that!) "Or are you actually scared of telling something to lil' ole me? Is the big, bad Jade West afraid of Miss Sweet Sally Peaches Tori Vega?"

"They had killed half of my family!"

The outburst was followed by silence so loud I had a feeling I went deaf. I couldn't think in that moment, my mind refused to understand that sentence. I knew the words, understood their meanings, I could tell the definitions of each of them when they stood alone. But together, like she put them, I couldn't understand. It wasn't right, it wasn't true. Right?

I felt the car stopping. I looked from her tensed face onto the road, surprised to see that we were on a parking lot in front of a mall. There weren't many cars, even though all the shops in the center were opened 24/7. I could see a few people walking in and out of the doors, towards or from the cars. They were talking, some of them laughing happily. None of them knew about the beasts that were running all over the LA, killing people. Killing mothers. I've never really thought of it like that. I've read about the brutal murders, but I've never thought about the killed people as of fathers, mothers, sons or daughters, as members of families. Now, that I actually did, all the murders seemed even worse in my eyes.

"When I was little," Jade started quietly this time, though her voice was tense. She breathed in through her nose and closed her eyes, then opened them again. She let her hands fall from the steering-wheel and onto her thighs, her head lowered slightly, but she still didn't look at me. And suddenly, she looked more tired than tensed or angry. She looked almost sad. "Mom used to take me out to the park. We would play there all day long, just me and her. Then, when my brother was born, we would take him with us, too. Dad would join us, sometimes, at Sundays, when he didn't have work… But one day…"

The sad look in her eyes changed into a distant one, as if she was living through the memory again. I knew that feeling, I got, sometimes, too stuck in the memory of the guy in the gym and I couldn't do anything but live through it again. Whenever that happened, I could feel his hands on me again, I could feel the desperate desire to break free, but also the heavy feeling of gloominess. I didn't know what she had gone through, but if she lived through it again and again like I did with my traumatic experience, I could very well imagine.

"One day, we were out late. The sun was already setting. Mom wanted to go back already, but I didn't want to," she sighed, balling her hands up into tight fists. It was difficult for her, I could see it and I could understand it. I wanted to tell her that she doesn't have to tell me that story, that I didn't want her to live through it again while telling me, but I also knew that once she started, it wouldn't be a good idea to stop her. So I only placed my hand onto her colder one and gripped her wrist tight, to let her know I was there for her. "I ran off and hid away, so we would stay longer. I heard my Mom call out to me, then my brother started to cry. I didn't know why, I couldn't see them. And then… they found us. I could feel them, even though I didn't know back then what they were, so I ran back to where my Mom had been. But I only found both of their bodies, torn apart, completely destroyed, with their blood all over the place. And there they were, two disgusting beasts that were eating the meat out of the corpses. A black cat and a white wolf, with their mouths red with the blood of my family. I wanted to fight them, to bring my Mom and brother back though I knew that when you're seven years old, you can do nothing to fight huge, people killing animals… They saw me and I ran away. Ever since then, I was training non-stop, searching for them, studying them. Killing them. I took down many of them and I got even more scars to remember the ones I killed. If there's someone who knows what kind of dangerous beasts they are, it's me, and I'm telling you, stay away from them. Or they might as well kill you. You were just lucky today. But that might not happen the next time."

"I… I'm sorry for your family," I whispered squeezing her hand in mine. I knew it wasn't enough, I knew it couldn't undo what was done, but it was all I could do. Showing her that I was there was the only thing I could think of doing right now, and the knowledge that I won't be able to do anything else about it was making me feel sting of anger at myself.

"Yeah, me too," she nodded her head and pursed her lips slightly, then she straightened in her seat and looked at me. "I don't want any more people I know to get killed by them, Vega. That's why I told you not to go anywhere. And that's why I'm telling it to you again, don't go out alone, especially after the dark."

She didn't give me a chance to say anything, she just shook my hand off of hers and with that, the moment was broken. She placed her hands onto the steering wheel again, took a deep breath, then she lowered the handbrake and we were on the road again before I could even notice how we got there.

"I think it's safe for you to go home now, Vega," she said after a short while of mindlessly driving around the town. I wanted to ask more questions, to make her explain everything to me. What she told me only put more questions into my mind and I desperately wanted to know the answers. How did she learn how to kill them? How did she manage to hide that all away? How did she do it with the school and everything? Would she teach me how to not get myself killed?

But I didn't ask. She wouldn't tell me anything, anyway, at least not now. I could see that in her eyes; they were impenetrable, stern and stubborn. With them looking like that, something in me made me bite down on my tongue to not ask any of the questions I had in my head. And according to how firmly she was gripping the steering-wheel and how her skin was paler than normal, looking almost surreal and dangerous, it was a good decision.

I half expected her to drop me off on the closest bus stop and drive away, not caring about how I get home (and I guess two years ago, she would have done just that, though I'm not sure, now that I look back at it, she never really looked like she truly hated me, she was just toying with me). I turned the voice record off and put my phone back into my pocket, ready to get out as soon as she would stop. But she didn't.

She only stopped after she pulled into the driveway of our house. To say that I was surprised was just like to say that fresh snow is white; it was a given fact.

"Well, we're here," she said as she turned off the engine and looked at me. "Hey, you okay? You're pale."

I frowned at her, quite confused by her words. I don't get pale, I'm naturally tanned, it's just not what I do, just like she doesn't sweat (according to her, at least). "I-I'm fine."

"You don't look fine to me, Vega," she almost growled, leaning forwards. Somewhere deep in my soul, there was a flick of hope that she might press her lips against my forehead, to 'check my temperature', or that she might actually kiss me right there. But the only thing she did was that she pulled down the shade and pointed to the small mirror on the inner side of it.

And, damn, she was right. I was pale. Not as pale as she was, but compared to how I normally look, I was very pale. Maybe it was from the shock of what happened? That was a logical explanation, as far as I knew. But it didn't explain the relaxed, exhausted state of my muscles that now, after almost an hour spent sitting in this quite comfortable seat, felt like fresh jelly topped with whipped cream.

"I'm fine, Jade, really," I said stubbornly, reaching for the shade with one hand to hide the mirror (to be honest, my own reflection in the mirror scared me, it was way too pale and too sick-looking for my liking. Like, my skin in the mirror looked almost ashy-gray), while the other reached for the door handle. "Thanks, for driving me home and... everything else. I'll see you in school tomorrow..."

I opened the door while saying that, and put my right leg out of the car. However, when I got out completely, the world started spinning and the ground was pulling me down with a force that seemed far higher than 10 meters per squared second. And as I was looking down at the ground, where I couldn't find a place that wouldn't be moving all around, I almost groggily realized that I was nearing the spot where my legs were.

That was, until a pair of strong, yet soft hands warped themselves around my waist and pulled me into something warm, firm, soft and unmoving.

My breathing changed into a rapid panting as two realizations hit me like a ton of bricks. First: I almost fell due to the exhaustion and inability of my sore and spent body to keep me up. And second: Jade must be either very fast, or a psychic, because it was her body that I was leaning into right now (and if it didn't feel good...). She was firm against me, like a block of solid ice, yet she was soft, warm and gentle while holding me up. I didn't want her to let me go, I wanted to stay like that with her forever.

"It's okay, Tori, I've got you," she whispered into my ear, her hot breath tickled my neck and sent shivers down my spine (I'm not gonna lie, I wished her lips and tongue followed after the breath, or the shiver).

My mind seemed to turn off in that moment. I fell limply into her, barely holding my head up, all the thoughts left my mind. I couldn't think, couldn't move. All I could sense was the warmth that was coming off of her body, the gentleness with which she held me and the swarm of butterflies that spreaded comfort all over my body.

"J-Jade… Just don't-… don't let me… go… so warm…" I muttered, not really able to understand what exactly I was saying. My body relaxed completely into her, my knees turned into jelly that wouldn't be able to hold me up, and my eye-lids seemed to be drawn down with even stronger force than my body was. My hands and legs suddenly felt cold (which was far more rare than a snowman in summer in Spain), but her body was so warm against mine, her arms felt so good on my waist and her breath tickled the skin of my neck so wonderfully. Just her presence was relaxing enough for me to actually almost fall asleep in her arms. "G'night, Jade."

"No, Tori, c'mon, don't fall asleep. Don't, Tori, babe, c'mon. Open your eyes, sweetie, I want to see your beautiful eyes," she said, gripping me tighter than before. I tried to open my eyes, even though I didn't really understand what she said. But my eyes didn't seem to budge, they just decided to stay shut. The energy that normally buzzed all over my body now seemed to actually go on a vacation, because I didn't have it in myself to actually move a muscle. It usually took me about an hour to fall asleep, but now I couldn't keep myself awake.

I let my head fall on her shoulder, not having enough energy to keep it up. My body relaxed completely into hers, the warmth of her embrace seeped into my skin like from the softest, warmest blanket on this world, making me just…

I felt my body being lifted up by a pair of strong hands, but somehow it felt as if it wasn't even my body. It felt distant, almost as if this was all only a dream. I felt the warmth and the gentleness of the touch, I could feel the slight impacts of every step, but it all felt like a dream.

By the time we got into my room, I forgot what happened or who was with me. I was still dancing on the line between consciousness and unconsciousness, and let whoever who was with me to do whatever they wanted. I felt my clothes being taken off of my body, then I felt my body being placed onto something cold, but soft. Something else was put on top of me and then everything went blank.

A slight shake made me stir and wake only slightly. My mouth was dry as a desert during an extremely hot summer, my muscles were sore like never before, my head hurt as if I had gotten a pretty strong blow into the back of my head and my eyes were opening and closing again. The warm, soft hand on my bare shoulder was the only thing I could concentrate on, until my nose got invaded by a scent I couldn't ignore. It was familiar and calming, yet it seemed unknown, exciting, arousing. It was sweet and spicy, warm, but now hot, pleasant. It smelled like lavender, vanilla, roses, figs and pomegranate, but it there was also scent of safety, warmth, welcoming and support (I know it sounds strange, but the scent made me feel all those things, I can't explain it) .I knew it from somewhere, but I couldn't place it.

"Hey, sweetie, wake up," I heard soft, gentle and familiar voice whisper right into my ear. I felt shudder run down my spine, even though I didn't really know why. It was a slightly raspy voice, a woman's, but somewhat arousing. It had that effect on me even though I was still slightly asleep. "C'mon, babe, wake up. You have to drink this, you're dehydrated."

"J-Jade?" I asked once the voice sunk in and I was able to connect it to my memories. I opened my eyes just to see her beautiful face and blue-green eyes that seemed worried, which was a look I have seen on her only a few times and it was always connected with Cat and sometimes Beck.

"Hi," she whispered, the corners of her lips turning upwards slightly, creating a soft smile. "You fell asleep on me there."

"Sorry, I-.."

"No, don't say that. You have nothing to be sorry for," she said in that soft whisper of hers that made my heart swell, I wished to hear it every morning and every night, and every minute in between that. She lifted up a hand, in which she held a cup filled with steamy liquid. My mouth felt suddenly even drier than before. "Here, drink this. It will help you sleep without nightmares. You'll need it after tonight."

I sat up quickly, even though my whole body gave a jolt of pain in protest, took the cup from her, brought it to my lips so quickly that a bit of the hot liquid spilled on my fingers and drank so hastily that I almost choked on it, but it didn't matter, because the liquid was wetting my mouth. She instantly took my hands into hers and drew the cup away from my lips. I tried to follow it, to get more of the liquid in my mouth, but she pushed me back.

"Okay, okay, hold your horses, hot-shot. You're gonna hurt yourself and I really don't want to preform CPR on you right now. Slow down," she said with a smile on her lips. She, however, didn't let me bring the cup back until I nodded my hand in agreement. This time, I drank more slowly, so I had the chance to actually take in the scent and the taste of the liquid. It was, probably, a mint tea, with a hint of lemon and something I couldn't place, but it was a pleasant taste.

"There, see? Much better, huh?" she asked, chuckling quietly, as I let the, now empty, cup fall into her ready hands. I closed my eyes, now quite satisfied with the wetness in my mouth. I felt a gentle push on my shoulder, and I let it guide me to lie back onto the bed. I curled up under the covers, the scent of lavender and the exhaustion of my muscles made me suddenly very tired.

Before I fell asleep, I could only feel a gentle touch on my forehead and a soft whisper of "goodnight, sweetie".

When I woke up in the morning, it took me a while to actually wake up and get myself out of the bed. That was weird, because my sleep was normally light, it took me long to fall asleep and only a while to wake up, ready for the day with a lot of energy. But not today. Today, it took me whole five minutes to actually throw the cover off and sit up in my bed. My eyes were still half-closed and my mind seemingly decided to work about ten times slower than normal, because only after I sat there for about half a minute, I realized that I didn't have on my normal sleeping clothes, which consisted from a tank-top and boy-shorts. Instead, I was dressed only in my panties, I didn't even have a bra.

Frowning to myself, I let my legs fall down from the bed and onto the cold floor. It made my eyes open fully, but my mind was still working slowly. After another few minutes, that I finally managed to wake myself up fully, I realized a few things. First: my alarm didn't go off this morning, which was more than weird. Second: my phone and my ear-buds weren't on the bedside table, where I always put it. Third: my clothes from yesterday were lying all over the floor. I have never left them like that, I always put them in the laundry after I get home. Fourth: the room smelled like lavender, vanilla, mint and sweat. The scent was familiar, but I couldn't place it. And the smell of sweat seemed off, because I always shower after I get home. Which got me to the fifth thing that felt off: according to the feeling of short hairs on my legs, I haven't showered yesterday evening.

I quickly walked over to my bathroom (my parents decided it would be for the best if I and Trina had our own bathrooms, since Trina takes forever in there and I also took long enough) and took a hot shower. It I could purr, I would, because the feeling on the hot water falling down onto my skin and relaxing my sore muscles was almost orgasmic (not that I know something about it, I only had sex a few times with three of my boyfriends, but none of them could bring me that ultimate pleasure, and I've never done it myself, it just feels so dirty and wrong). But that got me to think about the unusual soreness and calmness in my body. That had never happened, I had never felt this relaxed in the morning, I was always full of energy and anxiety. Well, not this morning. And if I said it didn't feel good… I could get used to that feeling.

When I got out of the shower, I quickly took out something to wear (though I didn't really pay attention to what I picked, so I can't tell you what exactly I was wearing), then I picked the clothes from yesterday to put them in the laundry, but the weight of the pants stopped me. I checked the pockets, and, yes, my phone was there with only about a quarter of the battery. I put my phone in the charger every other night and I guess yesterday was the 'other night'.

I quickly ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, shoving the phone into the pocket of my jeans. In the kitchen, Trina and Dad were both sitting at the table, talking over breakfast, well, better said arguing (probably about Trina wanting something from him and him trying to tell her no). I shook my head, trying to ignore my sister's voice as she pleaded with Dad (guess she wanted the new Pear-Phone ZCY5, which came out last week).

"Morning," I said, trying very hard not to mumble the word, since the muscles of my whole body and face didn't really want to cooperate with me.

Dad looked up at me, probably hoping that I would save him from my sister. "Good morning."

"Hey, sista," Trina exclaimed, looking at me with a pleading voice, "Tell Dad that I really need the new phone! The old one is ruining my reputation around the college!"

"You don't need a new phone, because the old one has nothing to ruin, according to your words," I said, not even looking at her. I walked to the fridge and opened it, my eyes instantly fell to the spot where my blue water bottle usually was. If you didn't notice the word usually, then you should, because the bottle wasn't there. And that was one of many weird things this morning, because I always put the bottle there after I come back from the run.

Before you say that I'm exaggerating, let me explain. The blue water bottle was a gift I had gotten from my Dad on the first day I had ever gone to the gym. My Dad took me there and gave me the bottle to ease me off. I took it with me every day for the workout, first into the gym, then on the runs. It's a habit by now, some sort of a talisman, if you will. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it has a huge emotional value to me.

"That's a very Jade-like thing to say, sista. You're hanging out with the she-demon way too much," Trina said in an accusing tone. I could feel it on my back that she was glaring daggers at me.

"I didn't ask her to be the part of the group I hang out with," I answered absentmindedly, still staring at the empty spot where my bottle should have been. Then I turned around, closing the door of the fridge, and looked at my Dad.

"What's wrong little beetle?" he asked quietly, looking slightly worried.

"Do you guys know where my work-out bottle is?"

"It isn't in the fridge?" Dad asked, looking more than surprised first at me, than at the fridge, and then back at me. He knew how important the bottle was to me, he always took care that the bottle was clean and filled with fresh water. He had been taking care of it ever since he had gotten it for me and I couldn't thank him enough for that. Yeah it's kind of weird, but it shows me that he loves me and cares for me.

"Nope," I answered, shaking my head.

"Well, you've lost it. It isn't really a surprise, you do loose things," Trina remarked, looking down at her sandwich.

"What are you talking about?"

"About your mind," she answered, shrugging slightly.

"Okay, Trina, this is weird, even with for you. Spill!" I almost growled out (even to me, it sounded Jade-like. Yeah, I guess I do spend a lot of time with her, but, can you blame me? She's beautiful and smart, and sexy, and sassy, and bossy, and she turns me on sooo much… okay, that's enough).

"Well, you had to lose your mind, because you gave yourself away to the she-demon."

"You sure you're not insane? Because I really have the feeling that you are," I said, frowning at her.

"I'm not. I'm just telling you what I've seen from the window of my room. Last night, the she-demon drove you home and she had to carry you into your room because you weren't able to stand. Whatever she had done to you, she's good. Weird, but good. I mean, it seemed like you had passed out. Not many people are good enough to make a girl cum so hard that she would pass out," Trina said with a half disgusted, half amused face. And I couldn't blame her for the amused part, if I'm right, I was probably looking like a dumb-struck idiot, with my mouth hanging low and my eyes wide.

Dad looked at Trina, then at me, the look of disbelief in his eyes was almost too much. "Tori, is that true? I wouldn't mind if you were dating a girl, but did you really go behind my back like that?"

"What? NO! Oh, God, no!" I said to my Dad, then I looked at my sister. "I call bullshit, Trina! If you want to scare me, you'll have to try harder, because this is way too easy to see through. I mean, I would never do that with Jade!"

"Wouldn't you?" Trina asked, quirking an eyebrow in a look of confident question, as if she knew something I didn't. I hated when she gave me that look, it made me feel like I was in a big disadvantage. "Then tell that to the looks you're giving her. Every one of them basically screams that you want nothing else than to provoke her into slamming you into a wall and thrusting her fingers up your-…"

"TRINA!" both me and my Dad yelled in union.

"I don't know if that is true," Dad started, standing up from the table. "But I don't need to hear more of this. If you really like this girl, Tori, I don't mind, just make sure she loves you the same before doing… that. And Trina, whether it is true or not, you have no right to say something like that. It's up to your sister to take care of things like that on her own, it's none of your business. Now, if you'll excuse me, ladies, I have to go to work. I hope you can sort this out without killing each other. But, if you don't, remember, not in the kitchen, we've just painted it last year and I don't really wanna do it again. Besides, it's really difficult to get rid of blood."

Both I and Trina watched dumbstruck as Dad left through the front door. Only when the sound of his car could be heard, Trina looked back at me with that same confident, but now accusatory look. "I'm right, ain't I? You want her to fuck you. Well, you got that, sista, or at least I think you did. She had to carry you all the way from her car to your room, and then she stayed there with you for a while. Guess she has good stamina, though according to how you looked yesterday and how you look now, you don't have enough steam to match her."

"Stop with that bullshit, Trina! We both know that Jade would never do that to me! She hates me!"

"Yes, she also says she hates the word tissue and yet, she uses it."

"Oh, c'mon! This is Jade we're taking about! She would never do that! That would mean she's attracted to me, which she isn't! And, she wouldn't drive me all the way home and carry me to my bed! She would never do something like that," I argued, my voice raising in volume. The upper part of my body leaned forwards slightly and my hands and legs straightened like every time I argued with someone. "Besides, I came home on my own last night!"

"Oh, did you?"

"Yes!"

"Are you sure, sista?"

I was sure. I remembered it. I had come home last night, put the bottle in the fridge, went into my room, put my phone and my ear-buds onto my nightstand, undressed, put the clothes into the laundry, went to shower and took at least an hour before falling asleep. I was sure that's what had happened. I could basically see myself doing it, I knew that's what I had done.

And yet, that's not what I had done at all. Because the bottle was not in the fridge, the phone had not been placed on the nightstand, the clothes had not been in the laundry and my body had not been washed yesterday night. I could basically see my nightly routine happening. But that was it, it was my nightly routine. I happened every night, it was no surprise that I had it burnt into my mind.

But I would remember if Jade and I had a night together that would make me pass out and that would make her drive me home and carry me into my bed. Well, if she had drugged me… no, Jade wouldn't do that. She's mean and everything, but she's not unfair. If she wanted me, she would go after me, she would flirt with me, she would try to get me (well, there wouldn't be as much trying as some might think, I would go willingly if she as much as said a word). Well, we did flirt, on occasions. Many occasions. And she did have some comments that might indicate that she actually wanted me.

"That's what I thought," Trina said, smirking.

"That's not true, Treen, and you know it! I mean, she's barely tolerating half of the people she talks to! And she is only hanging out with me, because she already was the part of the group that had taken me in when you, of all people, had left me all alone in the new school when you were supposed to be by my side, helping me! And she was only talking to me at first because she was Beck's girlfriend and Cat's best friend! It's not like there's anything in between us!"

"Okay, so what were you doing last night?"

I looked down, frowning. What had I done last night? Everything told me that it wasn't my nightly routine. But, what it was then?

"I don't know."

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><p><strong>I'm sorry for the cliffhanger, I just couldn't help myself. You'll see a lot of those in my stories, so get used to them. <strong>

**Well, this is the third chapter, I hope it did confuse you a little (yes, I'm talking to those who thought Jade is the white wolf and Cat is the black cat). I hope to make a lot of surprises in this story, to keep it interesting. **

**Well, don't forget to let me know what you think, and I hope you'll read the next chapter, which I'm working on right now. So, see you, guys! **


	4. So Tired

**Hi, guys! **

**I know it's been a while and I'm sorry for that. I have no excuse for it other than that I couldn't find enough inspiration or time to write. School has been killing me, my brother had made me his own personal driver for Friday nights (or better said, Saturday mornings) and I had my lazy period of time. I still kind of do. **

**The fourth chapter's here! I wanted to post it today, as a gift to every beautiful girl and woman out there (which means each and every one of you, because every woman is beautiful in her own and unique way ;) only I am some weird exception :D), since it's the International Women's Day. Celebrate, have fun and enjoy your day, ladies! **

**But, of course it's for everyone, because I love every one of my readers! Don't forget that guys!**

**Anyways, I'm not sure if this chapter is good and interesting enough for you guys and I'm really self-conscious about it, so let me know what you think, what I could do better and what you like. Please? **

**Now, I want to thank my awesome beta, ****Azkadellio, who's been kind enough to correct yet another chapter of my rambling. Thank you. **

**That's about all I have to say, so please, read, follow, favorite and review, because these little things can really make my day better, and they motivate me. Have fun reading!**

* * *

><p>I felt like it wasn't even me as I stepped into the building of the school. Trina, after our argument, didn't say anything to me the whole morning, she didn't even greet me with her usual 'bye, sista' when I got out of the car. Guess she was really mad at me. Well, the good thing was that I didn't have to listen to her the whole ride, like every other morning. The bad thing was that I had a feeling she wouldn't be taking me home today. Guess I'll have to ask Beck or Jade, though I had a pretty good idea who will and who won't agree to that.<p>

I tried to get the thoughts that Trina had put in my head out of my mind, but they seemed to be rooted there. Like the fantasies and dirty dreams I had about the raven-haired beauty, the words my sister had said this morning styed, ate away at me and made me frustrated more than Cat's bibble obsession. It was making me insane. Mostly because Trina's words changed in my head into a really believable, steamy hot fantasy that involved me pressed up between a cold wall and the warmth and firmness of Jade's body, with her long, slender, soft but this time definitely not gentle fingers deep in my pussy, touching all the spots that needed to be touched to send me into the oblivion of pleasure.

I leaned my head against the cold metal of my locker (I swear, if I were in a cartoon, steam would rise from my head at that touch). I was hot. The fantasy made me so hot and bothered that I wouldn't hesitate to drag Jade into the janitor's closet or girls' bathroom and have my way with her. Yeah, I really was that wet. (Forgot the a in steam)

I took all the books I needed for the day, then I closed the locker and turned around, just to see Jade and Cat walking into the school. Cat had a nice, yellow sundress on, with a yellow sunflower in her red hair and bright-yellow shoes on her feet. With her big, innocent eyes and bright smile firmly placed on her lips, she looked like this perfectly innocent character of a movie that would get into trouble and would get saved by this handsome guy in tight pants.

When she spotted me, the smile on her lips widened and she started to wave her hand wildly in my direction to say hello. I forced a smile and waved back slightly, but my attention got drawn towards the young woman with whom I, according to my crazy sister, did some sleeping which didn't involve sleeping last night. She was towering over Cat, even though she was only a few inches taller, now it seemed far too visible. It added to Jade's natural pride and confidence. She was wearing black, tight-fitting leggings; ankle-high fighting boots which were undone at the tops; a black, sleeveless t-shirt and red-black-gray shirt thrown loosely over her shoulders and her black, Guns'N'Roses bag hanging from her right shoulder. Her pale skin contrasted with the smoky eye-shadows she had on, its blackish-blue color only brought up the blue of her eyes. And even though she seemed mad (that wasn't really a surprise, she was mad almost all the time), she was beautiful. Who am I kidding, just one look at her was enough for me to get wetter than when I was thinking about the fantasy just a few minutes ago.

And then, she looked at me, and I felt two strong, warm arms around my waist. It was a short feeling, a fleeting one, almost like a memory of a dream that should have been forgotten long ago. But it seemed way too real for it to be a dream, so real, in fact, that it actually left me breathless for a moment.

The blue in Jade's eyes darkened as the stern look she had sent me now changed into a worried one as she watched me. I think my eyes were now about twice as wide as they normally were and I had a feeling that my mouth was hanging open (though I wasn't really sure, this whole day seemed like a dream and my mind just wasn't working correctly).

Before Jade and Cat could get closer to me, I took off into my first class, relying on the autopilot I had in my head because I didn't know what class I had.

Throughout the day, my mind didn't get better. I still couldn't get the memory of the touch on my waist out of my head, just like I couldn't get Trina's words from this morning out. It was frustrating, really, because instead of paying attention to the teacher, I was thinking of how those two could correspond. Maybe it was a memory of Jade's hands on me while we were lying in the bed together yesterday, before we decided it was time for me to go home? It would support Trina's theory, but it also would suppress everything I knew about Jade. And I would rather believe my own memories and knowledge of the beautiful rocker than the words of my crazy sister.

But why would Trina make up the story of Jade bringing me home?

To get under my skin, of course. She probably knew about the attraction I felt to Jade (attraction is a weak word, I would say it was somewhere in between a burning desire and insane want, or maybe it was those two combined. That would explain the wetness in my panties) and she just wanted to play with me. It was like Trina. Maybe. I don't know anymore. Trina is able to lie to me, but only if she can get something from it. And since I doubt she wanted to see my shocked face, there would have to be more to that than what she had told me. However, my sister was too lazy to come up with a long-term plan just to get at me.

So, why would Trina lie to me? Why would she come up with something as stupid as the idea of Jade carrying me home?

She wouldn't. But, Jade West would never carry me into my room! That was as un-Jade-like as being nice to everyone for a whole month. It was driving me nuts. I didn't believe Trina, because I knew Jade, but I knew Trina even better than I knew the rocker, and I knew for sure my sister would be too lazy to think about a long-term plan to get at me. However I looked at it, it didn't make any sense at all.

"Tori?"

My head jerked up, only to be met with an innocently smiling Cat. Her eyes were almost shining with innocence and her red hair looked like one of the most intense fires against the blue of the sky.

Wait, what? When did I get to the Asphalt Café?

About the same time my last class of the morning ended, which was… errr, some five minutes ago? I don't know and, to be honest, I don't really care (whoa, that really sounded like Jade. Yeah, don't tell me, I've got it bad, I know). I just know that ever since seeing Jade this morning, I couldn't get my mind off of the constant thoughts of the weird memory-like daydream, the fantasies Trina had put into my head and the fantasies my own sick, perverted mind had come up with over the three years of me knowing the sexy rocker.

I shook my head slightly to clear my mind of the inappropriate thoughts. Cat didn't deserve for me to be thinking of having Jade's fingers up my pussy (though the thought of her doing that on some public place was pretty tempting). So, after clearing my mind (only slightly, but whatever), I looked at Cat with a polite smile.

"Yes, Cat?"

"Are these yours?" she asked, holding out a hand. I frowned and looked at her palm that was slightly closed up into a gentle fist. In between her fingers, there were all-blue earbuds. As far as I knew, only one person had headphones like that. Me.

"Yeah," I nodded, frowning even more. Didn't I lose them? I mean, I don't remember missing them yesterday, but they weren't at my bedside table in the morning, nor they were in the pocket with my phone. She handed me the headphones and I took them, frowning at them as if they had just eaten my hamster (I don't have a hamster, just so you know, they are cute and all, but not cute enough for me to want them). "I thought I've lost them. Where did you find them?"

"I didn't."

"What?" I asked, now looking at her, still gripping the earbuds in my hand. "So how did you get them?"

"My brother found them," Cat said innocently as she walked around the table and sat down against me. Jade, who just seemed to appear out of nowhere, sat to my right, watching the redhead as intently as I did. "He said they were in the park and that he had found them on his way home. He was supposed to spend a night at his friend's and come home in the morning, I guess he took a shortcut through the Griffith Park. Though, the last time he said he would stay at a friend, dad had found him sleeping on a bench in the park…"

"Wasn't he cold?" André asked, leaning forward slightly.

"I don't know, I wasn't there with him," Cat answered innocently as ever. She then took a French-fry and bit down on it. "Hmm, they are good."

"I know this great place where they make really awesome French-fries. You wanna check it out tonight with me, Tori?" André asked, smiling something that probably wanted to be a seductive smile at me.

I faked a smile and looked down at my plate, which was filled with some sort of a chicken salad. It looked tasty (and even if it didn't, I would look rather at the plate than at my best friend right now). "I told you already, André, I don't do dates late in the evening. I already have something planned."

"Yeah, but we could go dance afterwards?" he tried again.

Before I could tell him something, a low, rumbling grown came from my right. I looked there, just to find Jade glaring at the boy who just tried (again) to get me to go on a date with him. Her face was scrunched up into a dangerous scowl as she kept her cold, deathly glare on the boy.

"She told you no, and that means no," she said, the tone of her voice cold and uncompromising. "So stop trying, you player. Find someone else who you could bother, okay?"

André looked ready to piss himself (just like Robbie, even though he wasn't the one Jade's anger was aimed at). His eyes went wide and his lower lip trembled slightly. It was really funny, seeing a normally cool, girls-boy André Harris scared shitties of just a glare from one sexy Jade West.

Jade faked a full-body thrust forwards and the body jumped slightly from the fear that she would actually hit him. He might have known better, she had been a part of the group for long enough and she hadn't yet really hurt anyone (not on purpose, anyways) no matter how much she threatened us. But it was funny to watch André squirm under her intense glare.

"Jade," Beck said, frowning and shaking his head at the girl.

"This is none of your business, pretty boy. Stay out of it," Jade now growled at her former boyfriend.

The two of them looked ready to jump at each other and tear each other's throats out, though Jade looked far more frightening than Beck. And that's when Cat decided to jump in with her innocent cheerfulness and giddiness.

"Hey, I have a fish for lunch! I wonder what kind of fish it is. I hope it's not a shark, I don't like those. It might be a dolphin! I love dolphins! They are so cute and nice and gray and shiny and they jump out of water and help people! I watched a documentary on dolphins where they were jumping out of water and whistling! And they are nice! And gray! But… what if there were green dolphins? I remember when I was younger, my brother had a big, green dolphin painted on the wall and it looked so real! It was so beautiful! What if they were green? That would be sooo cool! They would-"

"CAT!" Jade yelled, shutting the redhead up effectively. I was actually quite surprised she didn't declare blood vendetta the moment Cat mentioned dolphins, as the rocker hated them more than anything. It was actually the only thing I knew of that she was afraid of (and I don't even know why, I mean, they are nice and cute).

The redheaded girl looked apologetically at Jade, her head lowering itself in between her shoulder as if to protect herself, so now she looked like an overly-guilty turtle. It was actually quite funny to see her like that, with her big, brown eyes even bigger than normal and pleading for forgiveness, which everyone knew she would gain. No matter how much Jade wasted to look cool and tough, she was some sort of a softie when it came to some people.

"Man, I sure would want to make you scream my name like that, for totally different reasons," said Rex, who was now looking over Jade from Robbie's arm. I swear I saw the puppet's expression changing from its normal one into an aroused, wanting, hungry one. But Rex had done a few other weird things, so I guess a change in expression (even though it probably was just a work of my tired mind) isn't that abnormal for him.

"Shut up, puppet, or you can say bye to your hands, legs and then head. And trust me, I will enjoy tearing you apart," the rocker growled out, presenting Rex with such a cold death-glare that I wouldn't be surprised if it killed him on the spot.

"Damn, woman!"

"You know what, go ogle someone else, I'm outta here," Jade said suddenly. She got up as if nothing, grabbed her bag and walked into the school with a sway in her hips that seemed seductive, alluring and far more visible than ever before, yet it was so natural that I had a feeling she had always walked like that. She hadn't, really, but ever since she had broken up with Beck, she let her firm ass, long legs, perfectly shaped hips and seductive way of walking show more than ever before. I can't say I'm not enjoying it, because I am. And you would be too, if you could see it.

"Hey, guys, check this out!" André half-yelled after a while, holding out his phone, so every one of us could take a look. There was a photo of what I guessed was a torn apart human. There was a lot of blood and almost whole picture was censured, probably because of how bad it was. I could already feel my stomach doing flip-flops at the thought of how exactly the body looked like.

"Yey, it's red like my hair!" Cat said, holding out a strand of her hair with an excited smile. We all gave Cat a look that made her let go of her hair and look down sadly (I guess that's better than telling her what the red thing on the picture really is).

"Listen to this!" André said, frowning at the phone. "A victim of another brutal murder was found in the Griffith Park. As in all the other cases, the body was completely torn apart. However, unlike in the other cases, this time the blood wasn't missing, neither were internal organs. That gives new thoughts of motives to the detectives and makes the already complicated case even more complicated…"

I quickly stood up. All the eyes turned to me, giving me surprised looks. I took the headphones and put them in my bag, then I hung said bag over my shoulder.

"Sorry, guys, I just remembered I need to… err, do… something," I said, quickly looking from one face to the other, not really surprised that there was a suspicious look on every one of them (besides Cat, her expression was oblivious like always). Instead of actually thinking of something I 'needed to do', I turned around and walked away from the Asphalt Café quickly, but not quickly enough that it would look like running.

Even though I couldn't stop thinking about Jade, the weird dream/memory or the murder that had taken place in Griffith Park last night, I went for a run. I couldn't not go, with all the anxiety, nervousness and energy that accumulated in my body through the day, I felt like bursting out like a bomb if I didn't get it all out. So, whole two hours of running around the city with my headphones in my ears and musing pumping through my body together with the energy, I had enough time to think about a lot of things. It was mostly Jade.

Jade and her weird behavior. She had lashed out at André today just for asking me out for umpteenth time, for crying out loud! She didn't have a reason to do it! André wasn't hurting me or even intending to hurt me, she had no reason at all to be so protective! But was she protective? Why would she be? She hated me. She would stab me with her bluntest scissors if she could! She hated me.

But maybe she didn't. This wasn't the first time she had shown concern of me. She showed she cared when I got stuck in that prison in Yerba. Or when I cut myself while making her sandwich when she was over to do a project with me. Or when that guy in Karaoke Dokie tried to hit on me and wouldn't take no for an answer. Or that time when…

Okay, okay, she did care. Probably.

But why would she get so possessive and overprotective over me? Why should she protect me from André? He was my best friend! He wouldn't hurt me!

It didn't matter than I had two hours to think about it, I couldn't really get any light onto the situation. I was just as clueless about it as I had been when I was leaving the school. And the next few days weren't any better. Everything seemed to get caught in an unending time loop. I got up, I showered, I ate, I went to school, I couldn't concentrate, I got home, I tried to do my homework, I went for a run, I returned, I showered, I went to bed and I tried to fall asleep for at least an hour and half. It was making me sick. And my grades got worse because I rarely paid attention.

_I was in the Griffith Park. A light, warm breeze caressed over my skin, gently running over my body and warping itself around me like a warm blanket. The grass bent down under the soft touch of the wind and tickled my bare feet with its dew-covered leafs. The nearby trees stood proudly all around, guarding the small meadow they created. I felt like they were guarding me, too, like there was nothing to worry about._

_But the most beautiful thing was the soft, silver light that covered everything around. The drops on the leafs were shining with the glow and the whole meadow seemed almost sacred, as if it was an altar dedicated to some sort of a nature deity. Or, maybe, according to how the moon was shining down and lightening up the meadow even through the darkness of the night, it was an altar of Artemis, the goddess of moon and hunt._

_I felt a shiver run down my spine, and not the good kind of shiver. It felt as if someone just poured a bucket of icy-cold water down my back, freezing me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight as another shiver made its way down my spine. This time, I could tell they were shivers of fear._

_I looked around, taking in the meadow, the silver glow that reflected from the grass, the peace that seemed almost deadly, gripping the whole meadow in almost cold embrace. It was just like in those horror movies Jade liked to watch so much (I had watched a few with her, and after first few minutes I ended up burying my face either in the pillow, or in her hair for the rest of the movies, and those were actually the only times she let me be so close to her that we actually touched)._

_I turned around again, and this time, I found something that made me freeze completely. In the soft grass covered with dew and the moon-light, just about ten yards away from me, lay something huge in the grass. In the moonlight it looked silver, apart from the deep, almost blackish red that was all over the silvery-white something._

_I took a few steps closer to the thing, studying it from afar. I noticed four big, cat-like paws covered with white fur that hid the deadly claws. Then there was a long, round, striped tail curled around the white belly that had a huge cut right through it. I could see all the red, blood-covered guts that spilled from the animal's abdomen, as well as the white bones of its ribs. Its front paws were also covered with blood, cuts and torn skin, I could clearly see the muscles and, at some spots, bones._

_And then, I saw the head, which seemed small compared to the size of the body. It looked like a head of a cat, with its small mouth, pointy ears and big eyes with narrow pupils and venomously green irises._

_As I was watching the tiger, I had a feeling that I had seen it already. I didn't know where or how, I didn't know if a tiger as huge as this one, with white and gray fur existed, but I have seen it, and it wasn't just its kind, like an albino tiger. I have seen this exact one. Only without the wounds that adorned its unmoving, lifeless body._

_A loud, low growling made me turn to my right. From the darkness of the trees came another huge animal with white fur. I had to narrow my eyes slightly because its fur was shining brightly with silvery-white, like a snow on a ski slope. But even though I had to keep my eyes half-closed, I could see the beauty, strength and pride of the animal. It was tall, about five inches taller than me; its shoulders and ribcage were board, the skin covered with fur dipped at every joint of bones and muscles. I could see every move of the muscles when the animal made the slow steps as if to show off._

_When my eyes got used to the light that shone from the beast, I noticed the powerful elegance in the movements of the animal. It gave off such power that my body practically froze, but the most fascinating was its face. It was long, narrow, somehow stern-looking and raw. It was looking right at me and it felt as if the animal could see right through me, I felt like I was naked under its gaze. But, even though its look was so intense, I couldn't tell the color of its eyes. They seemed dark, yet I had the feeling that they were some light shade of some color. They looked as if there was mist over them that didn't allow me to see them._

_The animal made a few more steps towards me, but then, about five yards away from me, it stopped. The staring contest between us kept going, but the wolf didn't come closer. And I was happy it didn't, because if it did, I would probably bolt out of there as fast as I could. And as far as I knew, it would run after me and tear me apart._

_We kept just staring at each other, both of us searching for something in the eyes of the other. I'm not sure what exactly the wolf was looking for, but I was trying to find some sort of reassurance in those weird eyes. I needed a proof that it wouldn't jump up and bite my limbs off. I needed to know it wouldn't hurt me, because to be honest, I wasn't sure it wouldn't._

_I couldn't find what I was looking for. There wasn't anything that would let me know the wolf didn't want to hurt me. I actually had the feeling that it wanted to do just that. From the look in its eyes, that now turned more than dangerous and somewhat hungry, I could tell it was about to jump and sink its long, yellow fangs into my neck. It sent shivers down my spine, and not the good kind of shivers._

_Just as I had the feeling the wolf would leap forward, its eyes shifted from mine to somewhere behind me, I could see them concentration on one certain point. I turned around and just like the eyes of the wolf narrowed at the sight, my widened from surprise._

_There stood Jade, in a black t-shirt, black leather corset, black jogging trousers, black fighting boots with a scowl on her beautiful face that seemed far more dangerous and frightening than the hungry look on the wolf's face._

_The wolf let out a growl that made my insides freeze with fear, but the growl Jade let out only a moment later, even though just as frightening, made me feel warm and safe. I could smell the lavender, vanilla and roses, and something exotic, like figs or pomegranate. It made me want to just close my eyes and sleep. The wolf suddenly didn't matter at all, the hunger I felt from it, the freezing fear it gave me was completely gone. With Jade, I was okay. With Jade, I was protected. With her, there was nothing that could hurt me, because she would protect me, no matter what._

_I took a few steps away from the wolf, so now it, I and Jade created a triangle. The white animal and the girl in all black didn't let the other out of their sight, they kept glaring at each other (and honestly, I didn't know how he wolf didn't end up with its tail in between its legs in fear, when Jade gave him her famous glare), as if trying to read the other, trying to provoke the other to make the first move._

_I looked over the wolf. Its lips lifted in a growl, showing off its long, yellow teeth. Its legs were strong and claws long, its body was huge and heavy. It clearly had more than just one advantage. But Jade didn't seem to notice any of those. I knew she was stubborn and brave, but that seemed way too much, even for her._

_Something shiny near Jade's legs caught my eyes. It was long, silver, shining with the light of the moon. It was a blade of a sword, about thirty five inches long, narrow and thin, beautifully made, with the end of the blade slightly bent upwards, creating a sharp tip. It was a katana, a sword of samurai in middle-age Japan. A sword that was made from two types of steel, so it would be firm, strong and flexible all together. It was sharp from what I've heard, so sharp actually that it could cut through five people. Now I understood why Jade wasn't afraid of the wolf. If she could use the sword as well as I thought she could, the wolf didn't have a chance (and I didn't either, because if she looked as sexy while fighting as I thought she did, I'm done for__…__ I'll probably jump her right after the wolf is taken care of)._

_"What are you doing here?" sounded a growl somewhat melted into rough words. It still kept its eyes on Jade, as if to monitor all of the raven-haired rocker's movements (to be honest, I didn't wonder why, Jade was dangerous even without the katana in her hand, but now, I could think of only few beings more frightening than her)._

_"None of your business," she answered with a growl of her own (and a growl it was, I would think it came from another wolf if I didn't see Jade's lips move in time with the words). Then she looked at me, but she kept glancing at the wolf every so often. "Vega, let's get outta here."_

_"Wha-?"_

_"Don't listen, honey. She just wants to take you away from me," the wolf growled, now looking at me._

_"C'mon, Vega!" Jade growled out, this time, however, slightly more gently and softly. "Wake up."_

_"Stay with me, honey," the white canine said, concentrating solemnly on me. I couldn't take my eyes off of his eyes (I still couldn't tell what color they had). "Don't listen to that witch. She's lying to you, she's trying to trick you. She cannot be trusted."_

_"Tori, c'mon! Let's get out of here! Wake up! He's dangerous, I've told you already! He'll kill you!"_

_"I would never hurt you, my sweet, I won't allow anyone to hurt you! I'll protect you from everything, with me you'll be safe and loved! I will take care of you like no-one else. Trust me, my sweet, I love you!"_

_I wasn't sure who to watch, it Jade or the wolf. They both seemed to be trying to get my attention, they were almost fighting for it. As if they both needed me to listen to only one of them, it was important for them, both of them. Something was drawing me to the wolf, a force that was difficult to ignore. But the attraction and the warm feelings I had for Jade made me look at her. I just couldn't not look at her when she was there for me to admire her beauty and bravery._

_They kept on arguing, fighting for my attention, for me. While the wolf kept saying sweet words, promises of love, happiness and future it could give to me, Jade was only repeating the same – he's dangerous, he can kill me, I should wake up. And even though the promises of the white predator were alluring and flattering, I couldn't keep my eyes off of Jade._

_She held the katana slightly in front of her now. Her legs were slightly apart, her back bent forwards a little, her eyes intently watching the wolf with a look of complete concentration and a frown of her face. She herself was like a predator, ready to leap forwards and kill her pray in one swift motion. It was just as frightening as if was beautiful._

_"Tori, sweetie, wake up! You can't stay here!" she said. She looked at me for a second, her eyes softening a little, that greenish-blue color shining in them like stars in the sky above us. Then she looked back at the white canine in front of her and her frown returned, just like the stern, warning look in her eyes._

_"Shut up!" this time, the wolf addressed Jade. Its eyes, though still as distant as they were when I first saw them, were now hungry and angry, almost furious, as if she had done something to it. Maybe she had. Or she will, as I know her, because now, she bent forwards even more, gripping the sword in her hand and the look in her eyes changed into a look of a hunter. She was ready to kill._

_"Jade-" I stared, but the wolf cut me off with a growl._

_"I'll kill you just like I killed your bitch of a mother!" And with that growl, the wolf leapt up, opening up its mouth to bite Jade's head off. The girl gripped the sword in both hands and held out the sword, getting ready to strike when the wolf gets too close._

_"Jade!" I yelled at her. I didn't want her to get hurt, I didn't want to see a scratch on her soft, pale skin. I didn't want the wolf to touch her, even though she had her sword and she could take care of herself. I just wanted to protect her._

_I moved. My legs started running in the direction of the rocker as if my life depended on it. I could see the wolf in mid-jump out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn't get myself to stop. I couldn't allow him to hurt her._

_Then I heard the whisper, as if coming from the night sky: "Wake up, sweetie."_

My head jerked up and my body instantly tensed, ready to bolt away at the slightest sign of danger, because I couldn't recognize the place where I was currently sitting. There was darkness all around me, I could only see some darker shades in the pool of black there was in that room. When my eyes adjusted slightly, I could tell some of the shapes. Chairs, the outline of the stage, curtains. Memories came to me and my body relaxed. I was in the Black Box Theatre.

"Finally! I thought you'd never wake up."

I turned my head in the direction of the voice, only to be met with no one else than the beautiful and sexy as hell Jade West. She was standing there in her black jeans; tight, black t-shirt and blue-gray-black checked shirt thrown recklessly over her shoulders. Instead of a katana, she was holding her Guns'N'Roses bag. She didn't look like just mere moments before and it was making my head ache. How could she change so quickly? How come I'm not at the park? And where is the wolf?

Was it all a dream? Could it be? I mean, of course it could, but it all seemed so real, as if it was happening. I believed it was. I know you might not agree with me, but you haven't seen it. I would swear it was real. Well, in the dream, anyways, seeing as now I knew it couldn't have been real.

"What do you want, Jade?" I asked, my voice deeper than normal, slightly raspy and hoarse from the nap I had seemingly taken. I didn't know for how long I had been sleeping, the windows were blocked off with black curtain and the light in the room were off, so I couldn't tell the time by the light outside (as if that would help me, I couldn't remember when I had gotten here, so knowing what time it was wouldn't help me).

Jade was quiet for a while, I could feel her eyes on the skin of my cheek, then on my neck, then down my torso. It felt as if warm water was slowly making its way down my body, caressing my skin and making shivers of arousal run down my spine. I didn't understand, but that's how her look always affected me, it was enough for her to just look at me and I was more than willing to take off my pants and underwear and let her do whatever she wanted to me.

"You're sleeping in my thinking place. Get out!" she growled out. Her voice was raspier than normal, huskier and sexier than I would like, because it made my skin crawl in the most wonderful of ways. My God, I swear I had never been this turned on right after waking up before (I don't count the times where I had woken from a sex-dream that contained the raven-haired rocker).

But there was something about her, about the way she looked at me, the way she talked, was… I don't know how to call it, because gentle or soft didn't quite catch it. Well, they would, if it weren't Jade. Because there was nothing soft and gentle about her (at least I haven't had met with it). I didn't know what it was, but it took me by surprise. I also knew I had to come up with an effective comeback, because if I didn't, she wouldn't bother with answering me.

"Well, your thinking place is now my sleeping place, so you'll be seeing a lot of me here," I said without actually paying attention to what was coming out of my mouth. I had managed to come up with an autopilot that would turn on whenever I talked to Jade just to come up with some sort of an answer to her comments and snarls.

"Yeah, as if I let you stay here."

"You won't have a choice," I said back, my sleepiness fading away, letting my Hispanic passion take over. I put all of that passion into the bickering, into thinking of some smart remarks and trying not to smile when I heard her said something back. Throughout the years of constant arguing with her, I got used to it, it was probably the only way we can talk with each other. But what had started as fights to death had turned into somewhat gentle bickering. I actually came to enjoy our arguments, and she seemed to care of how her words affect me. She still was saying a lot of nasty things, but they weren't as nasty as they had been and when she said them, she had that tone in her voice and that look in her eyes that was basically screaming that she didn't really wanted to hurt me. And I came to understand that.

"I won't ask for your consent, Vega, I'll just kick you out whenever I feel like it."

"I didn't ask yours, either. I'll just come back whenever I feel like it."

"You think I will let you?"

"You have been letting me for the past three years, why should it change now?"

She kept quiet after that, she only gave me the look that said: 'I don't know what to say, but I will get you next time'. After a short while she crossed her arms on her chest and looked away, somewhere onto the stage, as if the closed curtains were suddenly extremely interesting (I know that feeling, I get it especially when she's around, so I don't really blame her).

"Whatever, Vega," she said finally, still not looking at me. "Your sister already left, by the way, so you'll probably have to catch a cab or something."

I frowned slightly, cursing my sister for not calling me. Then I looked at my phone and cursed myself for turning the vibrations off, because I had a few missed calls from my sister. Damn it. I looked up, with a question almost leaving my mind, but when I saw her, the memories of my first ride in her car came into my mind and I instantly looked down. I didn't want another ride through someplace where nobody would find us with a shovel glaring at me from the backseat of Jade's car. Though, if it wasn't for the shovel, I probably would have jumped her like a horny rabbit.

"Well? Why are you still here?" she asked in that slightly shrieky voice she only used when she imitated irritation with someone.

"And why are you still here?" I asked, frowning at her. My head began to feel slightly drowsy and heavy, but I ignored it for now (well, I tried to, at least, but it was doing no good for me, as I only wanted to yawn, put my head into my palms and sleep through the rest of the day.

"Beck's car broke so he took mine," she explained nonchalantly, as if it didn't matter. It probably didn't, at least to her, but with that information all my hopes of her giving me a ride home (even though they were so small I could consider them negligible) went out of the window for good. Well, I'll probably have to call Dad or walk home. Only the thought of that made my head pound with ache.

"How're you gonna get home?" I asked, closing my eyes for a while, trying to force the ache away. Didn't help. When I opened my eyes again, she was looking at me with something soft in her eyes, but that was soon gone and replaced by the usual coldness. I liked the softness better.

"That's not for you to worry about."

I didn't answer her. My head was pounding like crazy and my body seemed to declare a protest, so I couldn't move a muscle. I felt stiff and sore and tired. Those were completely new feelings, thanks to the HEF I had never felt anything like this, and I didn't like them, like at all.

"I told you to leave! What are you still doing here, Vega?!"

I let my head fall onto my hands and grunted to let her know I didn't want to deal with her (which was a lie, I was actually quite happy and pretty excited she was there, though I've never been so aroused after waking up from a dream that wasn't one of my sexual fantasies). "Waiting for you to leave. I wanna sleep."

"Not here, Vega," she protested, but I didn't really listen. My muscles were still sore and my mind decided to take a much needed nap. After all the thinking I had done today, I deserved some sleep and rest (and it was all thanks to Jade and her sexy body, which didn't leave me to concentrate on the class or sleep through it, so it was only fair she would get to tolerate me here now).

I couldn't understand why I felt so tired, but I didn't really want to dwell on it, not right now at least. It wasn't the time for a hard thinking. No, I was sleeping and that's that, not even Jade can wake me (okay, she might be able to wake me up and get me to do whatever, but for that, she would have to go all sexy on me, like she had done a few times in the past, and I didn't think that would be the case today).

"C'mon, Tori, don't make this harder than it has to be," she said, but I heard her only faintly. I didn't even try to lift my head, I knew it would be way too heavy for my poor muscles, and moving somewhere also didn't seem like a good idea (actually, it seemed like a very, very bad one to me).

Then I felt a gentle touch of a soft hand on my shoulder. At first, it only gripped me gently, then it squeezed slightly, and then it shook me with more than enough care. I could feel all of those, but I couldn't get myself to respond to any. It was as if my body was already sleeping while my mind was still half-awake. It all seemed like a dream.

"Tori, sweetie, c'mon, get up. We need to get you home, okay? Come on, get up. I'll take you home, to your bed, you'll sleep there…"

I wanted to answer those words, but I didn't understand half of them and the only thing that came out of my throat was a low grunt. After that, I only felt something warp around me and that was all I knew.

There was something soft and furry under me. I was straddling it, with my top half lying down on top of it, while it moved in an even rhythm. It was calming, it was assuring, it was safe. And it felt thick and velvety soft on my shin when I ran my fingers through it. I was warm, the heat from the furry something was warping itself around me, like a blanket. I never wanted to lose that feeling.

It all was like in a dream, one moment, I was basically lying on top of the furry something (I could swear it was white, even though I don't know where I got that confidence from), and the next one, we were in front of my house, hidden in the shadows, and I was standing on my own feet in front of whatever it was that got me home.

I remember turning to the something (and damn, I was right, it was white like fresh snow in the mountains!) that was looking back at me with a pair of big, deep, attentive, somewhat worried and beautiful eyes. It had a long muzzle that just begged me to pet it, but instead of that, I wrapped my hands around the neck of the big, white something, (lucky me it was about as tall as I was), the feeling of strong neck and soft, velvety fur under my fingers combined with the warmth was alluring me to stay in that position forever. But then, the cold nuzzle touched my shoulder, gently nudging me to let go and to go home.

I looked at the wolf for the last time. I wanted to stay. Something was pulling me towards it, I knew I shouldn't leave it alone. My place was next to this wolf. But it wanted me to go home and get some sleep and I couldn't be opposite to the idea (though I knew that I would sleep better if it was sleeping next to me, honestly, you would too, if there were a big wolf guarding you).

I don't know how I managed to get into the house and into my bed, I only remember that the whole night, I dreamt about white wolves and Jades with katanas.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, that's it for now, hope you liked it. Tell me what you think! Oh, and about the next chapter, I don't know when it will be posted, I'm working on it, but I didn't manage to write a word in more than three days now. It really annoys me, but I can't seem to concentrate.<strong>

**Anyways, see ya! **


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